You also need to answer the following two questions on your answer sheet:
7. If you return a DVD late what is the charge per hour?
8. What hours is the library open on Saturdays?
Welcome to Royal Holloway! To succeed on your course you will need to be able to search and find information quickly and effectively. To get you off to a good start here are 5 top tips:
1. Finding ebooks
We have a growing number of ebooks which you can access at any time.
To access ebooks you first need to search LibrarySearch. Search by author or keyword in the search box and then narrow your search by selecting RHUL Library Catalogue Only and Limit to Items with Online Full Text Available on the left hand side of the screen. Have a look at the short video below for a demonstration.
2. Searching for scholarly journals
Business Source Complete is a good place to start as it contains thousands of scholarly articles covering all aspects of business and management theory. You can search by keyword, subject, or for a specific article if you already have the details. Both databases also allow you to set-up alerts on topics that interest you.
You may prefer to use Google Scholar to find articles for your assignemts. You can configure Google Scholar to show an access link where full text access through a Royal Holloway subscription is available. To do this follow the steps below:
3. Finding newspaper articles in Nexis
Nexis is a great resource for finding full text newspaper articles and it includes hundreds of UK and international newspapers. You can browse Nexis to see which newspapers are covered or you can search for specific newspapers or groups of newspapers.
Browsing Nexis
To see a list of all UK newspapers covered by Nexis:
Searching Nexis
To search for articles, first check that you have the Search and News tabs selected from the options in the top left of the screen.
Enter your keywords into the search box and select a time period. Using In the Headline or Major Mentions options from the drop-down menu ensures that your hits will be more relevant. This is useful for when your search is likely to retrieve a great number of articles.
The list of results displayed gives only brief details. To view the full article, click on the highlighted title of the article.
As well as newspaper articles you can use Nexis to gather information about a company, industry, country and people.
4. Developing effective research skills
Knowing how to effectively search online resources will enhance your academic work. Take a look at one of our library skills courses IS223 How To Research Your Assignment for a step by step guide. This course will help you to identify the key concepts from a given assignment, select the best keywords and show you how to put them together to form an effective search strategy.
For a bit of fun take a look at this video!
5.. Avoiding plagiarism
You will hear the word ‘plagiarism’ referred to alot so what is it and how can I avoid it? Plagiarism involves the process of using or copying someone else’s work and pretending that you thought of it or created it. Plagiarism is viewed as a form of cheating and is a serious academic misconduct.
The most common forms of plagiarism are:
You can help avoid accidental plagiarism through the proper attribution of source material (i.e. correct referencing). Always make sure you take time to reference accurately and don’t be afraid to ask for help!
There are a number of college resources available to help you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it. The Academic Support Team provide useful and interactive guides on how to understand and avoid plagiarism. See the section ‘Study Resources’ on their web pages. The Library also has a self study course IS226 Introduction to Referencing, Citing and Biliographies course which will get you started.
Correct referencing to avoid plagiarism
Through the use of correct referencing you can avoid ‘accidental plagiarism’. Referencing, also referred to a ‘citing’, is the process of adding ‘references’ (or ‘citations’) an a ‘bibliography’ within your course work. A reference is a clearly identified ‘note’ that states that you are referring to someone else’s work and what the work is that you are referring to.
Referencing must be carried out in a specific ‘style’ as required by the School. The School of Management uses a style of referencing called Harvard. The Harvard Referencing Summary Sheet from Judge Business School is a useful guide which will help you with both your in text citations and bibliography.
You also need to answer the following two questions on your answer sheet:
9. If you wanted to work in a group in Founder’s library, where would you go?
10. Where would you go to borrow a laptop?
You also need to answer the following two questions on your answer sheet:
3. Where would you find print journals?
4. How many books can an undergraduate borrow?
You also need to answer the following two questions on your answer sheet:
11. How many hours at a time can you book a group study room for?
12. What is the course code for our Information Skills Session: SOS: Search our Stuff‘?
The Easter eggs have been eaten and the clocks have changed. This must mean the run up to the exam period has started and people are revising all over the college.
There are also lots of tools which can help your organise your revision.
Braineos – Allows you to create flashcards and games to help recall.
Evernote – you can use this to keep track of your notes as it has a great search function so you can search for notes on a subject. You can also create check lists to keep yourself organised.
Mind mapping – There are several tools, both free and paid for available. Here are a few:
Looking for past exams? You can find them via the library home page or this link.
The Library holds a number of books which provide you with exam tips. Many are shelved at 378.170281.
There are also several Ebooks (more are being added all the time):
Chapter Eleven of The Ultimate Study Skills Handbook has lots of tips.
4.7 of Study skills for psychology students has lots of general tips, not just of use to Psychology students.
Chapter 23 of Study Skills for geography, earth and environmental science students
Pages 195 – 199 The Business Students Handbook
You also need to answer the following two questions on your answer sheet:
3. Where would you find print journals in Bedford library
4. How many books can an undergraduate borrow?
Endnote Web a really useful tool for collaborative work as it has the ability to share groups of citations with other people . As long as both you and the person with which you want to share a group of citations have Endnote Web accounts, sharing citations is very easy. To register for Endnote Web see this post.
The instructions for sharing groups of citations are below.
1) Click on the Organize tab
2) Click the Manage Sharing button next to the group you want to share
3) Click the Start sharing this group link
4) A new window will open. Enter the email address of the person(s) you want to share the group of citations with (Note: the email address you enter needs to be the same one that the person you are going to share with has associated with his/her own Endnote Web account). Select either Read only or Read & Write privileges. Click the Applybutton and then the Close window link
5) To review your sharing settings. Click on the Organize tab at the top of the page. Check the box in the Share column next to the group you want to share
Note: Once you have shared a group you will see an icon next to groups you have shared on the My References page indicating it is a group you are sharing with others
Did you know that you can link Google Scholar to the library here at Royal Holloway and also Senate House? It’s a really useful thing to do as it means when you search for things you can check both collections.
Go to Google Scholar
Login with or create a Google Account if you don’t already have one.
From the Google Scholar home page click on Settings in top right hand corner.
From the Settings Page click on Library links from the left hand side
If you are on campus Royal Holloway will automatically appear, along with Open WorldCat. Off campus you may need to search for Royal Holloway (if you log in and save this you will only need to search once).
Search for Senate House.
Check both boxes next to Senate House Libraries – Available at Senate House and University of London Senate House – Full Text @ My Library.
You will need to register to use Senate House resources.
There is more information on Senate House in this post.
Now when you search using Google Scholar you will be able to see if the article is available through Royal Holloway library or Senate House.
Find it @ RHUL will often appear to the right of the citation but if it doesn’t click More below the citations to see options for Senate House and if appropriate Find it @ RHUL
With many students thinking about dissertations it seemed a good time to remind you about Senate House Library. This amazing resource is open to all students and provides many excellent resources for all disciplines.
Online Resources
You can use their online resources without visiting. Simply register online to use Senate House Library e-resources
You can view their database collections here either by subject area or as a complete A-Z list.
These are some particularly useful databases for Royal Holloway students which you can access via Senate House:
Online Journals
You will also find many journals that will be relevant for your studies. If you find the Royal Holloway Library Service don’t subscribe to a journal or our subscription doesn’t cover the years you require then you should also check the Senate House catalogue.
Print Resources
You can access the print collections of Senate House by visiting them in central London. You can borrow books and return them to the drop box on campus at the University of London Depository (Building 39 on campus map). The drop box is located just outside the main entrance at the top of the stairs and there are a few things to note: