Over the next few weeks you will find that library search will be getting better. The first change you may notice is that the journals A-Z looks different. Here are some key features that have been upgraded:
1. Simple search box, defaulting to “Contains” with option of “Starts with” and “Exact” – the same set up as existing A-Z but a radio button instead of a drop-down.
2. The results are listed with Starts with: instead of page numbers for easier browsing.
3. Access options listed on screen – no need to click on Find it@Royal Holloway
4. Provides additional information for related titles.
This video shows you how to Search Smarter and Search Faster:
2. Evaluate your resources
You have mastered your search techniques but you now you need to think whether your results are good enough. This presentation will give you some guidance in how to evaluate information.
You have access to all the eresources provided by Senate House Library along with those provide by RHUL. You need to register but this is easy to do and instructions are here.
You can search through their websites or you can connect to Senate House through Google Scholar. There is more information on this in this post.
4. Use the library
The library is your best friend at dissertation time. You can come in or use our virtual enquiry services to ask questions. Keep an eye on the Blog and Moodle for new training being offered. But most importantly use the Library Subject pages to find out which resources are best for your subject.
5. Manage your references and Get organised
Managing your references using RefWorks
RefWorks is an online bibliographic management program which enables you to capture, save and organize references into your own personal database. As a member of RHUL you can access it via the library homepage link to E-resources A-Z. It enables you to:
Capture and save references generated from online databases
Automatically generate a bibliography in your document
Insert citations directly into your research (i.e. word document)
Format your references in a wide range of citation styles
RefWorks includes a comprehensive set of online self-help tutorials, or you may wish to sign up for the one of the RefWorks sessions that the Library regularly runs or try the self-study start up guide:
> Use to: widen your search and ensure you don’t miss relevant search results
Most databases are not intelligent, they will just search for exactly what you type in. Truncation and wildcard symbols enable you to overcome this limitation. These search techniques find information on similar words by replacing part of the word with a symbol usually a * or ?.
In truncation the end of the word is replaced. For example theat* will find results including the words theatre, theater, theatric, theatrical and so on.
In wildcard searching, single letters from inside the word are replaced with a symbol. For example wom?n will retrieve the terms woman and women.
Please note! Different databases use different symbols for truncation and wildcard searching, so use the online help option to check what is used.
Search operators
> Use to: combine your search words and include synonyms
Also known as Boolean operators, search operators allow you to join terms together, widen a search or exclude terms from your search results. This means you can be more precise in locating your information. Not all databases support Boolean searching.
AND – Narrows your search by combining words. The results found must contain all the words which you have joined by using AND.
OR – Broadens your search to include resources which contain any or all of the terms connected by OR.
NOT – Narrows your search by excluding a term. Beware! By using this operator you might exclude relevant records because you will lose those records which include both words.
Please note! Check the online help screens for details of the search operators recognized by the database you are searching; some use symbols instead of words, e.g. + or &.
Phrase searching
> Use to: make your search more specific
Phrase searching is a technique that narrows your search down by searching for an exact phrase or sentence. It is particularly useful when searching for a title or a quotation. Usually speech marks are used to connect the words together. For example “Power transition theory” will find results which contain that phrase. Some search tools may use (brackets) or ‘single quote marks’ rather than speech marks so check the online help.
Focusing a search by date, language or document type
There are many ways to focus your search and all databases offer different ways of doing this. Check the help facilities if the options are not immediately obvious. Some of the ways of limiting your search are as follows:
Date of publication
Language
Place of publication
Publication type
Age groups
Type of material e.g. chapters in books, review articles, book reviews
When you find a useful article or book, looking at its bibliography will give you information about other, older, books and articles on your research topic. Some databases also allow you to search for literature which has cited the article or book you have found. This can give you useful leads on more recent research on the same topic. There is no standard name for this type of search; depending on which database you are searching it may be referred to as “Cited reference” or “cited by” or “times cited”.
3.8 Saving your search results
You usually have the option to select specific search results to keep by marking or tagging them. Most databases will offer the following methods of saving your search results:
Email search results to yourself.
Save to your PC or memory stick.
Create your own account within certain databases to save your searches to re-run later or set up alerts
Print out
Export to bibliographic management software such as RefWorks or Endnote
You can use alerting services such as Zetoc Alerts to receive regular e-mails to update you on new publications. Once the alert is set up, it happens automatically, so you do not need to re-run literature searches at a later stage, unless you wish to – http://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/
It is good practice to keep a record of which database you used and the search query you used.
It’s that time of year where you will want to access past exam papers to help you prepare for exams.
You can link to past exam papers through Moodle or through our online repository. If you are trying to access them off campus then you will need to use the VPN CampusAnywhere and then log into the page above where it says “Login (with a CC username). It’s really simple, take a look at the video to see how!
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwVLrgngJxY
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL-yP6cAjZE
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:
Sign in to your Google account if you have one. This will allow you to set the preferences so that you can access articles through the Royal Holloway access link on any computer
Click on the ‘Settings’ link in the top right corner
Under Library Links search for Royal Holloway and check the box next to ‘Royal Holloway, University of London – Find it @RHUL’
Finally click the ‘Save’ button
When using these links you will be prompted for your Royal Holloway logon
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:
Select the Sources tab (at the top left of the screen)
From the tabs beneath this select Browse Sources
Change Filter by country to the country you are interested in (e.g. United Kingdom).
Select the News folder under publication type
Select the Newspapers folder.
A list of titles will now appear, and you can search these individually or in groups.
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:
cut / copy and pasted material from the Web
copying the work of another student (past or present) including essay material, laboratory data or computer source code
copying course material or lecture notes
copying material out of a textbook or journal
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.
