Academic Liaison: Clare AckerleyResearch Support: Janette Colclough

RDT Training Programme 2014/15

Information searching for new researchers: finding material for your literature reviewThis presentation: http://tiny.cc/gts4ex

Overview of this workshop

• Search techniques: » keyword searching and combining» cited reference searching

• Locating the full text of items you find» accessing print and electronic resources at York

• Using other libraries

• Finding theses, using repositories

• Keeping up-to-date

• Managing your information (introduction only)

Format: Presentation, demonstration, practical exercises. Questions welcome!

• Data sources

• Primary sources

• Detailed search instructions for each resource

See your Subject Guide for more information

Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian for further assistance

What will not be covered

Planning your search

• Define what you want

• Identify your search terms

• Select sources to search

• Conduct search

• Record references and strategy

• Obtain relevant articles, books, etc

• Evaluate information

• This all takes time!

• Find key search terms» Synonyms butterfly/lepidoptera, cancer/neoplasm» Plurals liberty/liberties, child/children, mouse/mice

» Word stems educat* will find education, educational, educationalist, educating

» Alternative spellings organi?ation will find organisation or organization

• Phrase searching "mental health", "higher education"• Proximity advertising NEAR/2 campaign

• Synonyms OR neoplasm• Additional keywords/concepts AND therapy• Excluding irrelevant results NOT drug

Search strategy techniques

Use OR to combine search terms of similar meaning. Particularly useful when there are many appropriate terms that could be used to search one concept.

For example:» cancer OR tumour OR tumor OR neoplasm» “higher education” OR university OR college» child OR children OR girl OR boy OR minor

• OR searches for any of the words in a record• OR will make your search broader, retrieves more

results

Combining your search terms with OR

Use AND to combine the different concepts of your search.

For example:» cancer AND chemotherapy AND children» business AND survive AND recession» "art history" AND teaching AND multimedia

• AND finds documents in which all terms occur• AND retrieves fewer records, narrows down the

results

Combining your search terms with AND

• Think of alternative terms and combinations of words and terms for your search

• Discuss your topic and keywords with the person next to you

• 10 - 15 minutes

Hands-on practical no.1

Advantages• More results – a range

of resource types,e.g. books, journal articles, theses

• Simple to search

• Links to full text items available at York (use Settings off-campus)

• Cited references

Disadvantages• Too many results(?)

• Less quality control. Coverage: what is and is not covered? Duplication. Inclusion of some non-academic materials

• Inconsistent bibliographic information

• Few sophisticated search options, e.g. difficult to apply limits

Google Scholar

• Paid-for (subscription) databases» require a login

• Interdisciplinary databases, for example:» Web of Science, Scopus

• Subject databases, for example:» INSPEC, PsycINFO, MathSciNet, MEDLINE, EconLit,

Business Source Premier, Westlaw UK, ERIC, Empire Online, ARTbibliographies Modern, ABELL

• Access via E-Resources Guide or Subject Guides

Subject database searching

• Emphasis on peer-reviewed (high quality) titles within specific subject areas

• Sophisticated search capabilities» e.g. can combine searches using your search

history to produce more complex strategies

• Systematic indexing» many have own subject headings i.e. controlled

terminology

• Good options for saving search results

Why use the “paid-for” databases?

• Linking to full text» click on the link to access the full text

• Freely available resources, for example via:» Google Scholar

• Interlending service» make requests online, £2 per item

www.york.ac.uk/library/borrowing/interlending

Locating the full text

You need to evaluate the information you find:

http://library.leeds.ac.uk/skills-finding-and-evaluating-information

Look at the section on evaluating information

Evaluating your results

• Compare searching a subject database with searching Google Scholar

• Link to the full text if it is available

• 20 minutes

Hands-on practical no.2

References – provides you with additional information relating to the arguments / evidence presented in the research.

Citations – Citation searching allows you to search forward in the published literature, to locate new articles which cite the original source.

Tracing academic arguments

• Web of Science (WoS) » can sort results lists by Times Cited» search for cited references» create cited reference alerts

• Scopus» sort by Times Cited, View citing references, create cited

reference alerts» see Cited Reference tutorial at

http://help.scopus.com/Content/tutorials/sc_CitRefSearch.html

• Google Scholar» displays number of times cited» link to citing references» create cited reference alerts

Cited reference search tools

Demonstration …

using the Web of Science

Cited reference search

Try to find articles that have cited:

Johnson, L., Lee, A. and Green, B. (2000) The PhD and the autonomous self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy. Studies in Higher Education, 25 (2): 135-147

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Usefulness

"Citation indexing can improve scientific communication by revealing relationships between articles, drawing attention to important corrections or retractions of published work, identifying significant improvements or criticisms of earlier work, and helping limit the wasteful duplication of prior research.“

Lawrence, S., Giles, H.L. and K. Bollacker, K. (1999) Digital Libraries and Autonomous Citation Indexing. IEEE Computer, 32(6): 67-71.

Cited references

Usefulness

Cited references

• More citations = higher ranking for you and your institution (e.g. in REF)

• Can be used to indicate relative level of importance of a paper

• May be a positive or negative connection to other literature e.g. MMR vaccine

• Give you a quality controlled list of material to consult if you establish the context in which it has been cited

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• British Library» minibus to British Library at Boston Spa (Near

Wetherby) » further information at:

www.york.ac.uk/library/other-libraries/british-library

• SCONUL Access» enables you to visit and borrow from other

institutions, apply online http://www.york.ac.uk/library/other-libraries/sconul/

Other libraries – for items not at York

• White Rose Research Online» York, Leeds and Sheffield shared repository» access to material normally behind a subscription

barrier (Open Access)» items can also be deposited» more information about WRRO at: http

://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/

• Other repositories» SHERPA Search of UK repository content:

www.sherpa.ac.uk/» OpenDOAR global search: www.opendoar.org

Repositories

• York theses » finding York theses in the Library and online

http://www.york.ac.uk/library/collections/theses» White Rose eTheses online http://

etheses.whiterose.ac.uk

• Theses in the UK » ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: UK & Ireland (E-

resources guide)» EThOS http://ethos.bl.uk

• International theses» Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations» DART-Europe Etheses Portal» OAIster (Open access resources)

Theses

• What?» auto alerts for new search results» journal table of contents (TOC)» new books» tweets, blogs, etc.

• How? » email or RSS » mailing lists

• RSS» Need to subscribe to a feed reader

• RDT courses – networking, social media…

Keeping up-to-date

• Try out cited reference searchingOR

• Create an email alert for a journal relevant to your research, use either Zetoc or JournalTOCs» see the examples in the worksheet to help you choose

• If you register for an RSS feed reader, you could set up your alert as an RSS feed instead of an email alert

• 15 minutes

Hands-on practical no.3

• Bibliographic management software

» create your own library of references

» import references from the Library Catalogue, most subject databases, Google Scholar

» delete duplicates

» add your own notes

» insert your references into documents (Cite While You Write)

» format your bibliography in the correct referencing style

Managing information

• University of York supported packages:» EndNote (Desktop) and EndNote Web/Online

» Integrates with Word, IT Services courses and tutorial

» Paperpile» Web-based via Chrome, integrates with Google Docs and

Google Scholar

• Other packages:» Mendeley, Zotero, etc freely available but not

supported at York» Plugins not installed on IT Services computers

• See Organising your references:» http://www.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers/references/

Managing information

Information for Researchers web pages» www.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers

Subject Guides» http://subjectguides.york.ac.uk

University Library web pages» www.york.ac.uk/library/

Where to find more information

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Questions?

We need your

please fill out the courseevaluation form provided

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