Introductory Research Skills: A utumn 2011

1. Introductory Research Skills:Autumn 2011 Sue Bird Bodleian Subject Librarian Geography

2. How to cite sources correctly & therefore avoid plagiarism • How to use Reference Management Software • Pros & cons of Google Scholar • Introduction to Bibliographic Databases This session

3. Avoiding Plagiarism "...You must always indicate to the examiners when you have drawn on the work of others; other people's original ideas and methods should be clearly distinguished from your own, and other people's words, illustrations, diagrams etc. should be clearly indicated regardless of whether they are copied exactly, paraphrased, or adapted... ...The University reserves the right to use software applications to screen any individual's submitted work for matches either to published sources or to other submitted work. Any such matches respectively might indicate either plagiarism or collusion... ...Although the use of electronic resources by students in their academic work is encouraged, you should remember that the regulations on plagiarism apply to on-line material and other digital material just as much as to printed material..." Section 9.5 Proctors' and Assessor's Memorandum

4. intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/plagiarism.html

5. Good academic practice So by following the citation principles and practices in place in your subject area, you will develop a rigorous approach to academic referencing, and avoid inadvertent plagiarism. intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/referencing.html

6. Citing your references An article in an online journal which also exists in print should be cited in the same way as print To cite something which only exists electronically, e.g. a web site, follow special rules which include the date viewed A specific quote must include the page reference in the citation. Also any number of style manuals:- The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism /Colin Neville.2007 RSL LB 2369 NEV – also available on-line ! Cite them right : the essential referencing guide / Richard Pears and Graham Shields. 2010 RSL LB 2369 PEA

7. So what can reference management software do? • Store references to items in many different formats and material types • Search, select and output references in a variety of pre-determined styles, or one of your own making • Import references direct from databases like Scopus or Web of Knowledge, or library catalogues like SOLO • Search external databases from within the reference management software, and save references retrieved • Insert references into a word-processed document and format them in a particular style at the touch of a button • Store links to documents – pdf’s, images – or copies of them within database

8. Reference Management Systems RefWorks (web based – access your records anywhere - free to members of university – even after you leave) • ProCite, Reference ManagerandEndNote (works without web access – but software needs to be installed on own machine – charge of c£80 from OUCS) • EndNoteon the Web (free to members of university, but has limited feature set – designed to be used alongside desktop version) • Zotero is a free plug-in for Firefox browser (only) – limited but growing capability • Mendeley, etc.

9. Compatibility of different reference management packages • EndNote • Operating Systems • Word Processors • Note 1: EndNote has a ‘format document’ feature which can process .rtf format files containing unformatted citation place holders. These .rtf files can be generated by most Word Processors. The Cite While You Write plugin will only work with the word processors listed here however. • Note 2: X5 is the latest EndNote version. X2 is currently the version installed on library computers. X4 is currently the version being sold by the OUCS shop.

10. Compatibility of different reference management packages • RefWorks • Operating Systems • *The web-based elements of RefWorks work fine on Linux but the Cite-n-Write plugin is not available for Linux. • Web Browsers • *RefGrab-it plugins not available for these browsers – Google Chrome/Chromium & Opera - but the rest of RefWorks functionality should work. • Word Processors • Note: RefWorks has a ‘format document’ feature which can process .rtf format files containing unformatted citation place holders. These .rtf files can be generated by most Word Processors. I strongly don’t recommend this route, I’ve found it unreliable and error prone. The Write-n-Cite plugin will only work with the word processors listed here however. Works principally with Microsoft Word

11. Compatibility of different reference management packages • Zotero • Operating Systems • Web Browsers  • Note: Zotero is fundamentally designed as a Firefox add-on and only works with Firefox • Word Processors  • Note: Zotero requires a plugin to be installed for allowing addition of citations to word processed documents.

12. Compatibility of different reference management packages • Mobile Devices • Some reference management software has mobile versions offering generally more limited functionality and adaptations to better suit small screens. Some software also has dedicated app versions for iPads (or shortly will have in the case of ColWiz). • RefWorks – mobile version. • EndNote Web – mobile version. • Mendeley – dedicated iPad app. • ColWiz – dedicated iPad app coming very soon.

13. Compatibility of different reference management packages • General Web Browser Compatibility • Not all web browsers are compatible with all operating systems. Firefox is by far the best supported browser in terms of operating system platforms and the reference management applications it will work with. Mac and Linux systems can run some Windows software using hardware/software emulation or virtual machines. This gets very complicated, so this table focuses on what will ‘just work’ with each system

29. E-Journals I didn't check for the hard copy - so used to getting online access!

30. Newspapers Electronic newspapers • Some are freely available. Alphabetic list on OxLIP+ • Best source for the “Text Only” of huge range of newspapers and magazines is Nexis UK. Goes back approximately 10 yrs in most cases and is very current i.e. today’s daily news items

31. Newspapers Legal information, cases etc. • Lexis Library • WestLaw – both UK & US editions • But there are a lot more (if necessary ask the Law Library for help)

32. Google is fast • Very fast • Proudly fast • Tells you how fast • Found OUCS home page in 0.12 secs • Also found 445,000 other ‘relevant’ pages • But put home page first • Brilliant - How does it do it? • Not telling….

33. Did I need 445,000 references? • Nobody looks at all the references Google retrieves • So why display them? • Algorithm takes into account links made by other pages • And click-throughs • So the top result for a given search is determined over time by the people who make that search • Is that the same as the ‘best’ result?

34. So let’s invent… • Google Scholar • Let’s team up with publishers so they let us search behind their firewalls • Let’s modify our algorithm so it excludes non-scholarly material (how do we define that?) • Let’s look at citations so when one article we index cites another one we index, we can move it higher up the relevance ranking • Let’s link together different versions of the same article • Let’s include library locations for full-text access

35. But let’s not allow: • creation of sets • Or controlled vocabularies • Or combining of searches • Or hit rate figures for individual search terms • Or proximity searching • Or saving and e-mailing results • Or creation of alerts • Or standardisation of journal names/abbreviations • Or info on what is included and what is not • Or info on how the system decides what is scholarly • Or an indication of update frequency – seems slower than normal Google

36. Bibliographic Databases • Excellent for locating journal articles , book chapters and book reviews (NB. References only,) • General or specific subject coverage • Different interfaces but similar functionality • Not tied to library holdings • Frequently will provide a link to full text

37. Contents are indexed by subject specialists Subject headings Limiting functions e.g. publication types, language Allow you to View Search history Combine searches Mark and sort results Print/save/email/export Save searches Set up alerts Searches done by automated “web crawlers” No thesaurus / subject headings – just free text searching No limiting functions Usually none of these! Databases vs. Search engines

38. SOLO and Oxford e-journals cover Oxford holdings only by title • Better to use specialist indexes covering the world’s literature to find articles • Access via OxLIP+ • Use inter-library loan for items not held in Oxford and not online Subject searching

39. Bibliographic Techniques • Abstracting and Indexing Services • (for finding the actual journal articles) • Vast range. • SCOPUS (includes GEOBASE) • OVID SP • ProQuest for CSA Illumina • Web of Knowledge

40. THE bibliographic database for the Earth, Geographical and Ecological Sciences Scopus -- abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. With over 19,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, including 300 book series. • 45.5 million records: • 24.5 million records with references back to 1996 (of which 78% include references). • 21 million records pre-1996 which go back as far as 1823. • 4.6 million conference papers from proceedings and journals. SCOPUS