Dissertation Skills for

Anthropology M.Sc

(SCA + VMMA): Hilary 2016

Sue Bird Tylor Librarian for Anthropology

This session

Introduction to Reference Management Software

Google Scholar v. Bibliographic Databases

Introduction to Bibliographic Databases

Searching Techniques & Keeping up to Date

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

Adding a reference

Add manually

Direct export from

a database

Upload from a

text file

Grab website info

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

Direct export

• Easiest way to move references into your library

WoS

SCOPUS

ProQuest

OVID

RefWorks Overview

Dropdown menus Search your

references

Brief view of

references in

your collection

Folders list Quick function buttons

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.)

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

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

Bodleian Maps

SOLO Map

Search

Illustrations

Interesting new resource now available

Glass Lantern Slides from Oxford collections

Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR)

Argentina Naples 1893 Papua NewGuinea

Newspapers

Nexis UK (has international coverage)

News coverage offered by Nexis UK - Global news & business information service has over 20,000 sources of authoritative news

Ethnic NewsWatch

interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) &

comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.

E-books

Reference books Blackwell Reference Online

SAGE Research Methods Online

Text books EBL (officially) the E-Book Library

Oxford Scholarship Online

Ebrary Academic Complete

NetLibrary now hosted by EBSCOhost Ebook Collection

SAGE Research Methods Online

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

EBSCOhost

ProQuest

Web of Knowledge

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

Search Strategies

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

• Use Boolean operators

– AND – narrows down

– OR – broadens out

– NOT – excludes

• Use brackets to group operations

• “Altruism” OR “altruistic behaviour”

• “(social PRE/3 cooperat*)” AND

• (“altruism” OR “altruistic behavio*r”)

Shamanism Art

Art

AND Shamanism

Consumerism Commodities

Commodities

NOT Consumerism

Human Homo

Human

OR Homo

(Sapiens)

Improving Searching –

Boolean Operators

Other tricks:

Use symbols for wildcards and truncation

? or $ for a single character

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

behavio*r (is there an extra ‘u’ or not?)

* for truncation or variant spellings

shaman* for shamans, shamanism, shamanic, etc

use quotation marks for searching for phrases e.g. “material culture”

Identify the search concepts in your research question:

Visual depictions of Nuer initiation ceremonies

For each search concept, think of keywords, broader and narrower terms, synonyms etc:

Research Question: Visual depictions of Nuer initiation ceremonies

Row 1

Concept 1: Visual

Concept 2: Nuer

Concept 3: Initiation ceremonies

Row 2

Visual

Film

Photography

Nuer

Sudan

Tribal

Initiation

Ceremony

Culture

Customs

Row 3

#1 = Visual OR film* OR photog*

#2 = Nuer OR Sudan*

OR trib*

#3 = init* OR ceremon* OR

cultur* OR custom*

Row 4

#1 AND #2 AND #3

Creating a search string How you might do it….

Databases (Scopus or Web of

Science) enable you to:

• Refine results overview to find the main journals, disciplines and authors that

publish in your area of interest.

• Click on the cited by and reference links to track research trends and make

connections.

• Find out who is citing you or your supervisor, and how many citations an

article or an author has received.

• Use Alerts, RSS and HTML feeds to help you stay up-to-date

• Data export via bibliographic managers such as RefWorks

OxLIP+

SCOPUS

Good general bibliographic database

Abstract & citation database containing both 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 with references back to 1995

• 24 million records pre-1996 which go back to 1823

• Details from over 110,000 books

Anthropology Databases

Anthropology Plus //

AnthroSource

Bibliographic Platforms

Bibliographic Platforms

Web of Knowledge

Similar but not the same : a.k.a. Web of Science WEB of Science: Core Collection Broad Coverage – all subject areas (Journal Citation Reports – help choose the most effective title in your area)

Bibliographic Databases

Search :- “Population ageing from a lifecourse perspective”

(2010-15 only)

Scopus = 32 articles

ProQuest = 37 articles (35 not found by Scopus)

Web of Science = 17 articles (but 8 were in Scopus & others were in ProQuest)

RefWorks de-duplication = 69 !!

Your Paper/ Thesis

Good book on methodology

Paper supports my argument in

chapter 2

Classic paper to use

in the introduction

Useful literature review in

this paper

Lots of

country

data on

this site

NGO project evaluation,

good evidence for

chapter 5

Supervisor recommended

this book

Good comparison study in this

paper

Grey literature

Key sources for anthropology working papers, conference papers and policy briefs include:

MigrationOxford FMO Eldis CIAO PolicyFILE IOM UNBISnet

See the for other useful links LibGuides

RESEARCH DATA

Current Awareness

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.

SCOPUS ALERTS

Conclusion

• Maintain a balanced diet!

• Five a day…

– WoS, Scopus, Solo, subject-specific database,

Google Scholar…

Advanced Bibliographic Skills

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