Introductory Research Skills:Autumn 2011

Sue BirdBodleian Subject Librarian Geography

This session

How to cite sources correctly & therefore avoid plagiarism

How to use Reference Management Software

Pros & cons of Google Scholar

Introduction to Bibliographic Databases

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

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

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

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

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

Reference Management Systems

RefWorks (web based – access your records anywhere - free to members of university – even after you leave)

• ProCite, Reference Manager and EndNote (works without web access – but software needs to be installed on own machine – charge of c£80 from OUCS)

• EndNote on 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.

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.

Linux Windows MacNo Yes (XP, Vista, 7) Yes (OS X (10.5, 10.6))

Windows Word Processors Mac Word Processors

Microsoft Word (Win) OpenOffice / Libre Office Writer 3 (Win)

Microsoft Word (Mac)

Pages ‘09 (Mac)

OpenOffice / LibreOffice Writer 3 (Mac)

2003, 2007 No 2004, 2008 Yes No

2003, 2007, 2010 Yes 2004, 2008, 2011 Yes No

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

Linux Windows MacPartially* Yes (98, ME, XP, Vista, 7) Yes (OS X, 10.3 up)

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.

Linux Windows MacYes Yes Yes

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.

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

Linux Windows MacInternet Explorer No Yes No

Firefox Yes Yes Yes

Safari No Yes Yes

Google Chrome/Chromium Yes Yes Yes

Opera Yes Yes Yes

E-Journals

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

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

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)

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….

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?

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

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

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

Databases vs. Search engines

• Contents are indexed by subject specialists

• Subject headings• Limiting functions e.g.

publication types, languageAllow 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!

Subject searchingSOLO 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

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

SCOPUS

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.

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 1– Important to remember that although each database

covers thousands of journal titles no single database is ever comprehensive.

– If you are having difficulty finding material on a topic use the keywords you find in any relevant reference and search again.

Web of Knowledge

Similar but not the same : a.k.a. Web of Science

WEB of Science: ISI citation indexes

Broad Coverage – all subject areas

Automatic export to EndNotebut now with export to RefWorks

(Journal Citation Reports – help choose the most effective title in your area)

Bibliographic Databases

Search :- Community conservation in the Amazon (2010 only)

Scopus = 25 articles

Ovid = 20 after de-duplication of 33 articles, etc. (8 not found by Scopus)

C.S.A = 36 articles (after de-duplication of 39) (adds another 20 to the total)

Web of Science = 29 articles (a further 13 unique items)

Biosis Previews = 17 articles (gives another 5)

RefWorks de-duplication = 71

Conclusion

• Maintain a balanced diet!• Five a day…

– WoK, Scopus, Solo, subject-specific database, Google Scholar…

Further assistance:

This presentation available via WebLearn

More courses available: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/

Other presentations:http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser

Guidance for references:

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/referencing.html

Sue.bird@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Introductory Research Skills

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Searching

• AND implied between words as in normal Google• + to include common words, letters or numbers that Google’s search

technology generally ignores• “quote marks” to search for a phrase• minus sign – to exclude from a search• OR for either search term• author: for author search• intitle: to search document title• restrict by date and publication• advanced search screen available