Damien McManus Subject Librarian

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Damien McManusSubject Librarian
Englishdamien.mcmanus_at_bristol.ac.uk

• Introduction to online
• research resources
• (Community Engagement)

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Aim and objectives

• Aim
• to introduce you to online research resources
  relevant to English studies
• Objectives - by the end of the session you
  should
• Know where to access online research tools
• Know which ones to use for a particular purpose
• Know how to devise a search strategy
• Have been told (again!) about the ethical use of
  scholarship in your studies

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What will we cover?

• Well look at a range of useful research tools
• Electronic journals
• MetaLib
• Databases
• Websites

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Why are research tools important?

• They allow you to broaden your reading
• They allow you to discover resources which may
  not be available in printed formats
• evidence of reading outside the prescribed
  bibliography can contribute to high marks
  (Undergraduate handbook 2008-2009, section 5.7.4,
  accessed 13th January 2009)

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Finding electronic journal articles

• Use the e-journals catalogue to find journal
  titles if you know what you are looking for
• NB! Use the librarys online catalogue to search
  for printed journal titles
• NB! Using e-journals off-campus? Please refer to
  http//www.bris.ac.uk/is/library/collections/elect
  ronicinformation/externalresources.html

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How to use the e-journals catalogue

• E-journals catalogue available at
  http//www.bris.ac.uk/is/library/electronicjournal
  s/
• Important! Do not try to search for journal
  article titles
• Must use title of journal itself
• Examples
• Helen Baron, Lawrences Sons and lovers versus
  Garnetts, Essays in criticism 42 (1992), 265-278
• Haruhide Mori, Lawrences imagistic development
  in The rainbow and Sons and lovers, ELH 31
  (1964), 460-481

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Databases

• There are two main types
• Bibliographic databases (these index the
  scholarship relating to a subject)
• Full text databases (these contain the full texts
  of books, journals, etc)

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Accessing databases (1)

• Use MetaLib
• Find it at http//www.bris.ac.uk/is/ (Information
  Services home page), and click on the link to
  MetaLib
• Help and tutorials available at
  http//www.bris.ac.uk/is/library/metalib/guides
• Using off-campus? Visit http//www.bristol.ac.uk/i
  s/library/collections/electronicinformation/extern
  alresources.html

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Accessing databases (2)

• Use my subject web pages at http//www.bristol.ac.
  uk/is/library/subjects/english/
• Look for the Databases link at left of page
• Also contains outlines of major English databases

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Formulating a search strategy

• Example Discuss the relationship between the
  industrial world and nature in the works of D.H.
  Lawrence
• Split the statement up into concepts
• Discard words which just describe the
  relationship between concepts
• Find synonyms or related terms for concepts

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Search operators

• truncation industr industry,
  industrialisation...
• ? variant spelling v?rtue vertue virtue
• (use on the library catalogue in JSTOR)
• Arts and crafts movement use quotation marks
  for phrase searching
• AND, OR, NOT allow you to combine keywords

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Combining terms

• Search operator or
• Industry or nature

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Combining terms

• Search operator and
• Industry and nature

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Combining terms

• Search operator not
  
• Industry not nature

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Literature Online (LION) database

• What is it?
• Contains over 350,000 works of prose, poetry and
  drama from English and American literatures
• Contains a wide range of criticism and reference
• Why is it useful?
• For finding the full text of authors works
• For finding criticism about a theme or the works
  of an author

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LION (contd)

• Help and tutorials available
• 1. See my guide to LION on my subject pages at
  http//www.bristol.ac.uk/is/library/subjects/engli
  sh/databases/
• 2. Click the Information centre link on the
  LION website

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LION search examples

• Search for criticism about sexuality in Women in
  love

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Why not just use

• Wikipedia?
• Who wrote its content? When? Is it reliable?
• Google?
• Quality control
• Databases such as LION are indexed by specialists
• only contains scholarly work by recognised
  experts
• Quantity control
• searching for Ophelia on Google returns 4.3
  million hits many of them will be useless

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Other useful resources

• All of these are available via MetaLib
• Early English Books Online (EEBO)
• Full text of most works in English from 1473 to
  1700
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
• Full text of most works in English during the
  eighteenth century
• Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
• Very useful for tracking the history of a words
  usage
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB)
• British focus 4th century BC to 21st century

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Other useful resources

• All of these are available via MetaLib
• JSTOR
• Searchable archive of full text journal articles
• Project MUSE
• Another collection of full text journal articles
• World Shakespeare Bibliography
• Specialist Shakespeare index
• Intute Arts and Humanities
• Searchable directory of high quality websites

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Referencing your work

• Vital to provide accurate and sufficient
  references and bibliographical information
• Seek guidance from unit director if in doubt
• See Arts Faculty Guide to referencing academic
  work at http//www.bris.ac.uk/arts/skills/referenc
  ing/referencing20skills/index.htm
• MHRA style guide has good guidance
  http//www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGui
  de/download.shtml

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Plagiarism

• Plagiarism passing off, deliberately or through
  carelessness, someone elses work as yours
• Can result in expulsion from the University
• Useful resources
• Arts Facultys Guide to referencing academic work
  at http//www.bris.ac.uk/arts/skills/referencing/r
  eferencing20skills/index.htm
• Librarys Plagiarism information and advice at
  http//www.bris.ac.uk/is/library/findinginformatio
  n/plagiarism/

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• Damien McManus
• damien.mcmanus_at_bristol.ac.uk
• 2nd Floor, Arts and Social Sciences Library
• Tel [phone] (88033 internal)