Research Skills for Dissertations: 2016

Sue Bird Bodleian Subject Librarian Geography

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Reference Management Tools

This session

How to cite sources correctly & therefore avoid

plagiarism

How to use Reference Management Software

SOLO & OXLIP+

Reference works

Google Scholar v. Bibliographic Databases

Searching Techniques & Keeping up to date

Dissertation Techniques

What is a (good) dissertation?

When should I start and how long will it take?

Research design 1 - what approach should I take?

Research design 2 - exactly how should I do this project?

What kind(s) of data do I need & how do I get them?

What amount of data do I need, & what can I do with my data?

How should I write up my dissertation?

How to do your dissertation in geography

Parsons & Knight 3rd ed. 2015 GF 26 PAR

Dissertation Techniques

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 Proctors' and Assessor's Memorandum

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/plagiarism.html

Good academic practice

Follow citation principles

Develop a rigorous approach to academic

referencing

Avoid inadvertent plagiarism.

Be uniform in your referencing system:-

Probably use the Harvard system as suggested

on the School’s web-site – but whatever you do

use – just be consistent

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/referencing.html

Citing your references

Just a few of the more common points

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. (This also applies to tables & diagrams you have taken directly from another source.)

Using quotations

• A specific quote must include the page reference

in the in text 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!!!

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/preparation.html

TURNITIN

Your Bibliographies

• Not just your dissertation

• Don’t forget your Extended Essays

• If you are asked for a specific style – USE it

e.g. Biogeography Option has asked for bibliography

to be formatted according to the style of the ‘Journal

of Biogeography’ (2013 Finals no-one followed this so

marks deducted)

• How to find a particular style?

Citation practice

A large number of manuals are available to give

guidance and sound practice.

1:Doing a literature review / Chris Hart (London, 1998) [H 62 HAR ]

2:Manual for writers / Kate Turabian (7th ed. Chicago, 2007) [LB 2369 TUR ]

3:Communicating in geography & the environmental sciences / Ian Hay (3rd ed. Oxford, 2006) [G 70 HAY ]

4:Cite them right /Pears & Shields (2013 ed.) [LB 2369 PEA]

5: Complete guide to referencing & avoiding plagiarism / Neville (2nd ed. 2010) – available on-line via E.B.L.

What’s the point of reference

managers?

• Staying organised

• Collect information about everything you’ve read in one place.

1

• Saving time

• Speed up adding citations and creating bibliographies in documents.

2

How reference managers work

1. Collect

bibliographic

information

2. Create a

personal online

reference

database

3. Annotate, edit and

share your reference

database

5. Automatically

create a bibliography

for your work

4. Insert citations as

you write

Software available

• Many different packages are available

• The principles are the same but the details are

different

• Variations in price and features

LibGuide for Reference Management

About RefWorks

• University subscription

• Online – accessible from anywhere

• Plugin allows adding references to

your Word documents

RefWorks Overview

Dropdown menus Search your

references

Brief view of

references in

your collection

Folders list

Quick function buttons

R.T.Tally is actually the translator of this item

Right-click on this

RefGrab-It

bookmarklet link

E-Journals

I didn't check for the hard copy

- so used to getting online access!

“I had just googled the article rather than using

SOLO, so that was the issue & why I’d been

asked to login, or use Athens or pay a fee”

Newspapers

Electronic newspapers

• Some are freely available. Alphabetic list on

OxLIP+

• Best source for the “Text Only” of huge range of

newspapers and magazines is Nexis UK. Goes

back approximately 10 yrs in most cases and is

very current i.e. today’s daily news items

Newspapers

Electronic newspapers

• Factiva - from Dow Jones & Reuters Company

• Business news & challenges, market trends & info.

• 14,000 + sources inc. local & global newspapers,

newswires, trade journals, newsletters, etc.

• Archive back to 1969 - 28 languages from 159

countries

• Dun & Bradstreet company profiles, Reuters

Fundamentals, etc.

Legal Resources

Jurisdictions, topics, cases etc.

• Lexis Library

• WestLaw – both UK & US editions

• But there are a lot more

(if necessary ask the Law Library for help)

Bodleian Maps

SOLO Map

Search

Illustrations

Interesting new resource now available

Glass Lantern Slides from Oxford collections

Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR)

Naples c. 1890 Vesuvius Railway early C20th Vesuvius 1923

Dissertation Techniques

Use SOLO or OxLIP+ to access

Reference tools

Abstracting and Indexing services

E-books Reference books

Blackwell Reference Online

SAGE Reference Online

SAGE Research Methods Online

Text books EBL (officially) the E-Book Library

Oxford Scholarship Online

Very Short Introductions

Ebrary Academic Complete

NetLibrary now hosted by EBSCOhost Ebook Collection

SAGE Research Methods Online

Subject searching

SOLO and Oxford e-journals cover Oxford

holdings 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

Bibliographic Databases

General or specific subject coverage

Different interfaces but similar functionality

Not tied to library holdings

Frequently will provide a link to full text

So what about Google?

• Is it just a search engine?

• Is it a publisher?

• or merely a platform, an intermediary?

• A content kleptomaniac and parasite (- in Rupert

Murdoch's famous characterisation )

• Or a stunning, hydra-headed incarnation of the zeitgeist?

• Is it a stunningly resourceful and ingenious servant?

• or is it on the way to becoming our master?

Popham, P. (29/09/2012) The Independent, p. 20

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!

Bibliographic Databases

Vast range.

SCOPUS (includes GEOBASE)

OVID SP

ProQuest

Web of Science

Search Strategies

• Boolean logic

• Truncation

• Wild cards

• Synonyms

• Which language are you using?

Boolean connectors

• AND – combines terms to restrict results

• OR – useful for covering synonyms

• NOT – excludes unwanted areas of research

• Use Boolean operators

– AND – narrows down

– OR – broadens out

– NOT – excludes

• Use brackets to group

operations

• “Global warming” OR “climate

change”

• “(glaci* PRE/5 retreat*)” AND

• (“Global warming” OR

“climate change”)

Amazonia Biodiversity

Biodiversity

AND Amazonia

Renewable Energy Supply

Energy

Supply

NOT Renewable

Travertine Tufa

Travertine

OR Tufa

Improving Searching –

Boolean Operators

SCOPUS

• THE bibliographic database for

Geography, Earth and

Environmental Sciences

SCOPUS

Abstract & citation database containing peer-reviewed research literature.

22,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers.

Now starting to include more book material

60 million records:

36 million records back to 1995

24 million records pre-1996 which go back to 1823

Details from over 110,000 books

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 1

– Important to remember that although each database

covers thousands of journal titles no single database

is ever comprehensive.

– If you are having difficulty finding material on a topic

use the keywords you find in any relevant reference

and search again.

Synonyms & Language

• Topic = Retreat of the Arctic sea ice

• Search:

• A) Arctic sea ice retreat

• B) “Arctic sea ice retreat”

• C) (“global warming” OR “climate change”) AND

( arctic OR polar OR greenland) AND ice

• Context : “glacial retreat” OR glacier melt / decay

Bibliographic Databases

ProQuest

• IBSS: International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

• Sustainability Science Abstracts

• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

• PAIS International – government & other ‘grey’ literature

• EconLit

• Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management

Bibliographic Databases

OVIDSP

• CAB Abstracts – natural resources

• Forest Science - biogeography

• GeoRef – physical geography & geology

• Zoological Abstracts (1864-2009 only)

Bibliographic Databases

Web of Science/Knowledge :

Core Collection

– Includes Science, Social Science & Arts and Humanities Citation Indexes

– Citation indexes can be used in the same way as any other abstracting and indexing service. Their extra facility is the option to search the bibliographies of any articles- a citation search. Academics use the citation index to find out who has cited their work.

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 2

Take time to explore the various databases & platforms available.

Some will be more useful to you than others.

• Scopus

• OvidSP

• ProQuest

• Web of Knowledge

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 3

Boolean Logical Operators AND, OR, NOT

Proximity operators

Adj (literally adjacent); Near(same sentence); With(same

field)

Field descriptors: AU(author); TI(title); AB (abstract);

SO(source or reference); DE (general descriptor) etc are

likely to be specific to each database and won’t operate in

‘cross searches’

Combining searches: #1 and #2

Other tricks:

Use symbols for wildcards and truncation

? or $ for a single character

globali?ation / globali$ation (is it an ‘s’ or a ‘z’)

* for truncation or variant spellings

govern* for governance, governmentality, etc

use quotation marks for searching for phrases e.g. “resource management”

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 4

• Consider subject synonyms & British and US spellings.

• Apply truncation, usually * to find plurals/alternative word endings and ? to replace a single character.

• Expand search by following hypertext links esp subject headings

• Use tagging facilities within database to mark articles for printing, emailing, downloading or exporting.

• Authors names: Check the online help for formats. Use the database index to find different forms of author’s name, otherwise truncate first initial.

Bibliographic Databases

Search :- Impact of La Nina and oceanic circulation on climate

change (2014-15 only)

Scopus = 45 articles

ProQuest = 33 articles (22 not found by Scopus)

Ovid = 27 after de-duplication (adds another 11 to the total)

Web of Science = 46 articles (a further 19 unique items)

RefWorks de-duplication = 97 !!

Bibliographic Searching

Three ways to keep up to date:

• Saving and rerunning searches – you save a search and run it

again in the future.

• E-mail alerts / RSS feeds:–

– Specify a search to be repeated and the results emailed to you at

chosen intervals or on a continuous basis

– Select your favourite journal(s) & the database will tell you when

the next issue of a journal is available.

• Citation Alert – you will receive an email every time a particular

article is cited in another WoS or Scopus indexed article.

Dissertation Techniques

Apart from Bibliographic Electronic Resources there are some factual databases available

via OxLIP+ e.g.:-

• World development indicators,

• EIU Country Reports,

• Demographic Yearbook

• Landscan Global Population

see Bodleian Data Library for more resources

GUIDE to RESOURCES http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/geography

Further assistance:

This presentation available via WebLearn & on-line

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/science/training/training-presentations

Guidance for references:

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/

referencing.html

Sue.bird@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Dissertation Techniques

Your feedback is greatly appreciated

Please complete a short survey @

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/rslMT2015

Appendix

• Results from Google Scholar

• Record for : “Sensitivity of different

convection schemes …” in

a) Scopus & b) OVID

• Record for : “Strong sensitivity of Pine

Island ice-shelf melting …” in

a) Scopus & b) Web of Science