Improving your literature searching MA Education: Academic Skills

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• Improving your literature searchingMA Education
  Academic Skills
• 18 and 23 February 2009
• Susan Lewis s.e.lewis_at_leeds.ac.uk
• Faculty Team Librarian (Education)

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• This session we will
• revisit searching databases
• planning your search
• use more techniques for better searching
• finding web resources
• look at problems Intute, Endnote, Referencing
• - anything else?

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• What was the most useful thing you learned in
  November?
• Write on a post-it note.

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• What else do you remember learning?

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• Finding readings for myself
• Where shall I look?
• What am I looking for?

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• Where shall I look?
• Library Catalogue
• published bibliographies aka databases
• web sites, especially international organisations

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• Searching the Library Catalogue
• keyword search - modify it
• click on subject headings eg
• Language and languages -- Computer-assisted
  instruction
• then click again in the index

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• Library Catalogue keyword searching
• "..." quotes for a phrase (words together in
  same order)
• truncates a wordstem to find all variants of a
  word
• eg educat finds educate, education, educator(s)
  
• OR to combine alternative words with similar
  meanings eg computers or ICT
• AND to link separate ideas eg computers and L2
• brackets () makes clear which steps to do first

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Choosing a database - List of Education databases

• On the Library Home Page, go to Support for my
  subject - Education
• (or from the VLE, or the Portal)
• Look under Subject specific resources
• click on Databases list with descriptions
• Look too at Subject resources
• for related subjects

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• a search on BEI (British Education Index)
• Using the Internet in second language teaching

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• BEI results - Show titles

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• Finding readings for myself
• Where shall I look?
• What am I looking for?
• MAKE A PLAN

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• Why is it good to plan your search?

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• You can use your plan to
• keep track of progress - tick off each stage of
  your search
• make sure you don't miss anything out
• add new words in the right place
• re-run searches regularly
• keep a record, with dates - you may want to
  include your search strategy in your thesis
  methodology section
• Modify it as you go along

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• Where shall I look?
• List the databases and other resources you need
  to search on your plan

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• What am I looking for?
• think about search methods

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• Think about search methods -
• subject searching - subject headings, keywords,
  descriptors, identifiers, thesaurus terms
• use the help given by the database -
• known reference - what descriptors are used?
  Search with these
• Thesaurus - suggests broader, narrower related
  terms
• author - other work
• 'cited by' link eg in Web of Science,
  Sociological Abstracts
• output from research centres?
• bibliography - follow up references cited

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• Subject searching - think about your topic
• divide into concepts
• think about vocabulary
• combine using OR and AND

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Concept maps
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• My search plan
• Use for lists or mind maps
• My title
• Using the internet in second language teaching
• What are the main concepts?
• internet
• second language teaching

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• For each concept, list words (keywords) with
  similar meanings.
• internet
• world wide web
• web
• information technology
• ICT
• computer(s)

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• For each concept, list words (keywords) with
  similar meanings.
• L2
• second language
• foreign language
• additional language
• TESOL
• TEFL
• EFL

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• Work with a partner
• Explain to each other what your research is
  about.
• Using My Search Plan -
• write down the title of your project
• What concepts are there in your title? List them,
  or draw a mind map.
• What search words will you use?
• (5 mins)

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• Boolean logic
• AND to combine different concepts
• OR for alternative keywords
• NOT to exclude

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• Are there any words with alternative endings?
  Use a word stem followed by or ? Use OR to
  link words with similar meanings. eg (teen or
  adolescen)
• (internet or ICT or information technology)
• ((second or foreign or additional) language) or
  TESOL)

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• Use and to link the concepts together
• (internet or ICT or information technology)
• and
• ((second or foreign or additional) language) or
  TESOL)

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• search methods -
• subject searching - subject headings, keywords,
  descriptors, identifiers, thesaurus terms
• use the help given by the database -
• known reference - what descriptors are used?
  Search with these
• Thesaurus - suggests broader, narrower related
  terms
• author - other work
• 'cited by' link eg in Web of Science,
  Sociological Abstracts
• output from research centres?
• bibliography - follow up references cited

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• our search in BEI - internet and second language
• known reference - what descriptors are used?
  Search with these

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• Search British Education Index
• go into BEI
• search for internet and second language
• show titles
• link to document record of number 4 A
  mixed-method study of EFL teachers internet use
  in language instruction

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• BEI record, with details and descriptors

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• Using descriptors from a known reference
• hold down Ctrl and click on internet, computer
  uses in education, computer assisted language
  learning to add these descriptors to your search
• return to the record again
• click on the descriptor second language teaching
• combine the sets, eg 2 or 3 or 4
• then 5 and 6
• click show titles to see the results

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• BEI search history - combining with OR and AND

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• Check your progress -
• Are these results relevant?
• Have I found enough references?

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• Too few references - what can you do?

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• too few references - widen your search
• think of more keywords - eg web or world wide web
  as well as internet
• look for related examples - compare similarities
  and differences
• use a broader category eg computers rather than
  internet
• try other databases
• use different search methods

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• Too many references - what can you do?

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• too many references - narrow your search
• focus on one aspect eg internet rather than
  computers
• limit by geographical area
• or by some characteristic eg age, sex
• limit by date
• focus on a specific case study

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• try other search methods -
• subject searching - subject headings, keywords,
  descriptors, identifiers, thesaurus terms
• use the help given by the database -
• known reference - what descriptors are used?
  Search with these
• Thesaurus - suggests broader, narrower related
  terms
• author - other work
• 'cited by' link eg in Web of Science,
  Sociological Abstracts
• output from research centres?
• bibliography - follow up references cited

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• more features in BEI
• Thesaurus
• author searching
• journal contents
• limiting
• by date
• by publication type
• repeating the search in ERIC and/or AEI
• ranking

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• just the right number -
• download the references - save to a file or email
• select the most relevant
• check the Library catalogue
• Document Supply?
• KEEP A RECORD

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• add keywords to your plan
• link keywords with or, then link concepts with
  and
• Search on BEI for your own dissertation topic
• (15 mins)

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• Bringing your search up to date
• Citation searching
• Find who has used a known reference and built on
  it in their own work
• Use Web of Science
• CSA also offers some citation linking
• Alerting services eg
• Web of Science
• British Library's Inside service

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• Not enough / too many references?
• no. 4 on Activities sheet
• (5 mins)

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• Websites

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How to find websites for Education?

• On the Library Home Page, go to the Librarys
  Subject support for Education (or from the VLE,
  or the Portal)
• Look under Subject specific resources
• click on Websites

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Websites

• a gateway
• lists sites arranged by subject
• sites are selected and assessed by experts
• for a particular audience
• quality is more important than quantity
• eg Intute http//www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/

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• Searching Intute
• Follow the instructions on the activity sheet

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• Endnote - what is it?
• EndNote is a piece of software that allows you to
  store and manage your bibliographic references.
  You can manually create references and import
  them from databases.
• You can then use the references stored in EndNote
  to automatically create your bibliography in
  Microsoft Word and format it in a variety of
  output (referencing) styles. 

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• Endnote
• EndNote training sessions are available through
  our Skills_at_Library programme - see
  http//skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/
• Teach yourself the basics using our Introduction
  to EndNote workbook (pdf) - used in our training
  sessions

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• Referencing

• From the Library Home page, use the Site index to
  find "referencing".
• Click on
• Harvard referencing

This page shows examples of how to cite a range
of different publications and formats in your
bibliography.
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• Further help
• Skills_at_Library online tutorials
• http//skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/online_tutorial
  s.php
• Skills_at_Library workshops
• see Workshops leaflet
• book at http//skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/workshop
  s.php

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• over to you ...