Information Skills for Research in Earth Sciences Sue Bird Bodleian Subject Librarian Earth Sciences Elizabeth Crowley Earth Sciences Departmental Librarian October 2011

This session How to do subject searches for journal articles, conference papers, book chapters etc How to cite sources correctly & therefore avoid plagiarism How to use Reference Management Software

Subject searching SOLO and Oxford e-journals cover Oxford holdings but 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

SOLO : Search Oxford Libraries Online Search and discovery tool for the Oxford Libraries' vast collections of resources Title link to over 1,000 databases on OxLIP+

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.

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] full text) General or Subject specific coverage Different interfaces but similar functionality Not tied to library holdings

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

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 (£90 from OUCS) can be very helpful. Most databases allow you to export references directly to RefWorks or EndNote.

Avoiding Plagiarism

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.

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 RSL LB 2369 NEV – also available on-line ! Cite them right : the essential referencing guide / Richard Pears and Graham Shields 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.)

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.

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 ing 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

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/ /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 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 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 ● 4.6 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: GEOREF: 105 Web of Science: 40 Scopus: 19 Refworks (after deduplication): 156 !!!

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 ( ) Is there a print copy in an Oxford library? - Check SOLO ( If not, try Inter-Library Loan via Earth Sciences Library or RSL - Default means of delivery is SED = Secure Electronic Delivery i.e. attachment

GEOLOGY DIGIMAP

Information Skills for Research in Earth Sciences These slides are available on Your feedback is greatly appreciated Please complete a short

Any questions in the future, contact your subject librarians: