Information Skills for Research in Earth Sciences Sue Bird Bodleian Subject Librarian Earth Sciences Elizabeth Crowley Earth Sciences Departmental Librarian October 2014
This session will help you with: subject searches for journal articles, conference papers, book chapters etc., citing sources correctly so that you avoid plagiarism a very serious matter, using Reference Management Software
Subject searching tools SOLO and Oxford e-journals: - cover Oxford holdings but only by title of journal Specialist indexes: - cover the world s literature at article level OxLIP+ = the gateway to these resources Inter-library loans: - can be obtained for items that aren t held in Oxford and aren t online
SOLO : Search Oxford Libraries Online Search and discovery tool for the Oxford Libraries' vast collections of resources Provides title links to over 1,400 databases on OxLIP+ Provides links to growing collection of e-books
SOLO doesn t tolerate spelling mistakes! So be tenacious in your searches.
Please make sure you sign out from SOLO and close down the browser when you have finished. If you do not do this, your account will be available to anyone who uses the computer after you.
Journal coverage on SOLO and OU ejournals SOLO: Oxford Collections The most comprehensive tool for finding journals covering Oxford s electronic and printed collections OU ejournals Covers most ejournals but NOT all ejournals and NOT printed journals. SOLO Articles & More Covers a random selection of electronic articles but does not include print or even the full range of ejournals
Electronic Legal Deposit restrictions The Legal Deposit Act 2003 imposes restrictions on electronic items received under Legal Deposit: Items may only be read on Library owned computers within the Bodleian Libraries Saving, copying and pasting is forbidden But PRINTING is allowed Each item may only be viewed by one person at a time
GUIDE to RESOURCES libguides/earth sciences
Major sources Today we cover: GeoRef Web of Knowledge SCOPUS Google Scholar
Glossary Bibliographic Database= an indexed source of citations of journal articles (Use these to search for content, e.g. book chapters and journal articles) Library Catalogue= a list of books, journals, maps, records, etc. held in the library and arranged in a systematic manner (Use this to search for a book or journal, once you know the title of the journal or the author or title of a book)
Bibliographic databases Excellent for locating journal articles, book chapters and book reviews (NB. References only, NOT necessarily [though increasingly] linked through to full text) General or Subject specific coverage Different interfaces but similar functionality Not tied to library holdings
Bib. databases - Interdisciplinary Web of Science a.k.a Web of Knowledge covers journals in all subject areas; extra feature of Citation searching Scopus Provides an alternative to WOS for crossdisciplinary search
Search strategy Ask a clear search question What role does ocean circulation play in Pleistocene climate change? Break the question into search concepts Pleistocene climate, ocean circulation, climate change Combine terms into a search strategy using Boolean connectors Find more terms from retrieved records whilst you are searching
Boolean connectors: AND, OR, NOT AND to narrow the search OR to broaden the search (synonyms) NOT excludes search terms
OR, AND, NOT Ocean circulation Pleistocene Climate change
Boolean Operators Use Boolean operators AND narrows down OR broadens out NOT excludes Tephra AND Deposition Tephra Deposition Use brackets to group operations Travertine OR Tufa Travertine Tufa Vesuvian OR sub-plinian (nuee* PRE/0 ardente*) AND (Vesuvian OR sub-plinian ) Red Sandstone NOT Devonian Devonian Red Sandstone
Other tricks: Use symbols for wildcards and truncation? or $ for a single character pal?eo / pal$eo will find paleo or palaeo * for truncation or variant spellings volcan* for volcanism, volcanic, volcano, etc use quotation marks for searching for phrases e.g. plate tectonics
Sample search What role does ocean circulation play in Pleistocene climate change? AND =narrows OR =widens Search string could be climate change AND Pleistocene AND ocean circulation
Thinking outside the box Pleistocene OR Quaternary (but not Holocene) ocean circulation as a phrase OR ocean circulation as 2 separate terms climate change OR climatic changes OR global warming should we include pal(a)eoclimatology? Different combinations will give different results you need to try them all
GEOREF THE database for Earth Scientists
Keeping track of your references Make sure you keep a systematic listing of your references, so you can find them again when you need them A simple listing in Word should be fine, but if you have a large number of references, software like RefWorks (free) or EndNote ( 95 from IT Services Shop, Banbury Rd.) can be very helpful. Most databases allow you to export references directly to RefWorks or EndNote.
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
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.
Using quotations A specific quote must include the page reference in the citation. They must also be enclosed by quotation marks. If you don t then TURNITIN software will ping it back as plagiarism, even if you have given the full reference. THAT means straight to the Proctors a whole load of hassle and a 50 fine!!!
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 and be enclosed in quotation marks. Also any number of style manuals:- The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism /Colin Neville. 2nd ed 2010 RSL LB 2369 NEV also available on-line! Cite them right : the essential referencing guide / Richard Pears and Graham Shields. 2013 (9 th ed) RSL LB 2369 PEA
Reference Management Software Organize your research and manage your database of references Include citations while you write your paper Build a bibliography in a variety of formats Import references from many different data sources Create bibliographies in different document formats (Word, RTF, HTML, etc.)
LibGuide for Reference Management
R.T.Tally is actually the translator of this item
Google Can t get away from it Google is an index of web pages A journal article is not a web page So Google is not good at finding journal articles However: An image of a journal article may be placed on a web page So Google may find it If it s free and not behind a firewall
Google will 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 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
Databases vs. Search engines 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!
Interdisciplinary Databases Web of Science (also known as Web of Knowledge) SCOPUS (includes GeoBase for Earth Sciences)
SCOPUS Abstract and citation database containing both peerreviewed research literature and quality web sources. Includes nearly 22,000 journal titles and over 50,000 books. 53 million records: 32 million records with references back to 1995 (of which 84% include references). 21 million records pre-1996 which go back as far as 1823. 5.5 million conference papers from proceedings and journals.
IT PAYS TO LOOK IN MORE THAN 1 PLACE! Search Strategy: ocean circulation + Pleistocene + (climate OR warming) Date range: 2010-2013 GEOREF: 110 Web of Science: 48 Scopus: 18 Refworks (after deduplication): 150!!!
Getting your hands on full- text Is there a link to full text from the database? Is the journal available electronically in Oxford? Check Oxford e-journals (http://ejournals.bodleian.ox.ac.uk ) Is there a print copy in an Oxford library? -Check SOLO (http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk) If not, try Inter-Library Loan via Earth Sciences Library or RSL -Default means of delivery is SED = Secure Electronic Delivery i.e. e-mail attachment
GEOLOGY DIGIMAP
ArcGIS
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Any questions in the future, contact your subject librarians: Elizabeth.Crowley@earth.ox.ac.uk Sue.Bird@bodleian.ox.ac.uk