Information Skills for Research in Earth Sciences Roger Mills OULS Bio- & Environmental Sciences Librarian October 2008

This session  How to do subject searches for journal articles, conference papers, book chapters etc  How to cite electronic sources correctly  How to avoid plagiarism

Subject searching  SOLO, OLIS and Oxford e-journals cover Oxford holdings only  Better to use specialist indexes covering the world’s literature  Access via OxLIP+  Use inter-library loan for items not held in Oxford and not online

Major sources Today we cover:  Web of Knowledge  SCOPUS  GeoRef  Google Scholar  Many others available: see OxLIP+

Going home  These are mostly subscription databases  Only available on Oxford network  Outside Oxford, login using your SSO – Single Sign On – username and password (as for Webauth / Herald e- mail)  Athens/VPN no longer needed

What can you find on Oxlip+?  Library catalogues including OLIS  Bibliographic databases (journal article summaries & tables of contents)  Full-text electronic journals  Internet sites (subject gateways)  Reference works & Statistics

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  Some will provide a link to full text

Bib. databases - Interdisciplinary  Web of Knowledge (  Web of Science covers journals in all subject areas  Citation searching  Scopus (  Provides an alternative to WOK for cross- disciplinary search and citation searching; incorporates Geobase

Relevant Subject Databases  GeoRef (for geology)  Biological Abstracts (life sciences and environment)  CAB Abstracts (environment)  These are available on OvidSP Gateway software and can be cross-searched there

Search strategy  Ask a clear search question What is the impact of tropical deforestation on our climate?  Break the question into search concepts tropical deforestation, 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 Tropical deforestation Climate change Environment

Other tricks:  Use symbols for wildcards and truncation  ? for a single character  wom?n will find woman or women  * for truncation or variant spellings  enzym* for enzyme, enzymes, enzymology etc  use quotation marks for searching for phrases e.g. “ non-ferrous metals ”

Sample search  What is the impact of tropical deforestation on our climate?  AND = narrowsOR = widens  Search string could be:  “Climate change” and “tropical deforestation”

Getting your hands on the 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 from the Earth Sciences Library or RSL  Default means of delivery is SED = Secure Electronic Delivery

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!

Google Scholar  Has links to many, but not all, journal publishers  So not all journals can be found through GS  Records can only be selected singly  But quick route to full text when relevant article found

Citing your references  An article in an online journal which also exists in print can 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

Avoid plagiarism  Easy to copy and paste paragraphs and make it look like your own work  Heavy penalties if caught!  Make sure you always give correct citation  See: [or Google ‘plagiarism uk’]

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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 (£80 from OUCS) can be very helpful.  Some databases allow you to export references directly to RefWorks or EndNote.

Maps  If you need to do much mapping, consider using the MapInfo software. The Bodleian Map Room staff can give you guidance.

 To find the databases go to OxLIP+ search by the database title:  Web of Knowledge  SCOPUS  GeoRef  Nb turn off pop-up blockers!

Quick Reference Guides  Web of Knowledge:  Quick Reference Card Quick Reference Card  SCOPUS:  Online tutorials Online tutorials  User Guide User Guide  OvidSP  Tutorials and guides Tutorials and guides

These slides are available on 

Any questions in the future, contact your subject librarian:

Try these  Petrogenesis in Europe  Intracrystalline deformation in the Alps  Sequence stratigraphy in volcanic areas  Ultra-high pressure metamorphism