SC2101 Library Tutorial

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SC2101 Library Tutorial

• Literature Search in Sociology
• by
• Hayati Abdul
• clbha_at_nus.edu.sg
• NUS Libraries

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Objectives

• To show you how to
• Conduct a search for scholarly materials via
  Sociology databases
• Scopus
• Sociological Abstracts
• Access full-texts using proxy bookmarklet
• Use search plugins
• Search catalogue LINC effectively

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Outline

• Literature Review
• Search Strategy
• Sources for Research
• Databases
• Proxy Bookmarklet, Search Plugins
• InfoGate
• LINC
• Help

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Literature Review

• What?
• It is an account of journal articles, books and
  other sources published on a topic by scholars.
• Provides description, summary and critical
  evaluation of each work.
• Why?
• Purpose is to convey to your reader what
  knowledge and ideas have been established on a
  topic.
• How?

Critical Appraisal
Information Seeking
Literature Search
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Literature Search
Need information on a topic?
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American Sociological Association Citation Style
Help readers verify your claims
Backup your arguments
Show research done
Acknowledge intellectual debt

• Guides
• American Sociological Association. ASA style
  guide
• Quick style guide for students writing Sociology
  papers
• A guide to writing Sociology papers

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Search Strategy
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Some Fundamental Tools

• List keywords synonyms to describe your topic
• Topic Finding love online
• Love - romance, dating
• Online - cyberspace, internet
• Combine keywords with Boolean operators
• Use truncation/wild card
• Group words to be searched together

How to search the above terms?
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Boolean operators

• AND both terms must be present
  (narrow/refine)
• OR either of the terms may be present
  (broaden/expand)
• NOT excludes a search term

AND
OR
romantic love AND marriage
online OR internet
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Truncation

• For variation in spelling
• gambl gambled, gambling, gamble
• parent parenthood, parenting, parents
• Note Different databases use different wildcard
  symbols e.g. , ?, !
• Check database guides, help menu...

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Parentheses ( )

• Control order of operations
• Terms within ( ) will be processed first
• (low income or single parent) and families
• low income families
• single parent families
• (teen or adolescent) and pregnancy
• teen pregnancy
• teenage pregnancy
• adolescent pregnancy

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Sources for Research
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Sources

Books
Overviews, detailed look
Information Sources
Journals
Latest research findings
Quantitativeinformation
Reactions,recentevents
Theses
Statistical data
In-depth treatment of topics
Newspapers
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Academic/Scholarly Journals?
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Evaluating Sources
Authoritative?
Accurate? Current?
Authors credentials?
Well supported by refs?Updated?
Objective?
Appropriate?
Information objective or biased?
Is info what you need?
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Understand References
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Interpret references

• Journal article

Kosut, Mary. 2006. "Mad Artists and Tattooed
Perverts Deviant Discourse and the Social
Construction of Cultural Categories." Deviant
Behavior 27(1)73-95.
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LINC Journal Search
Search journal by title
Limit to Journals Collection
Click to access E-journal
Click for current issues
Click for location of current issues
Click for location of bound volumes
Click for other bound volumes
Search specific volume or year
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Interpret references

• Book chapter

Farrer, Peter. 1996. "In Female Attire Male
Experiences of Cross-Dressing - Some Historical
Fragments." Pp. 9-26 in Blending Genders, edited
by Richard Ekins and Dave King. London
Routledge.
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Sociology Databases
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Access Databases from Library Portal
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Scopus

• Multidisciplinary database, 1966-
• Provides indexes, abstracts and links to
  full-text
• Includes open access journals, conference
  proceedings, web sources, author homepages,
  university sites, articles-in-press, preprint
  servers
• International coverage of journals.

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Lets search
My Blog is me blogging and presentation of the
self
blog and self
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Lets search
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Lets search!
The significance of romantic love for marriage
(romantic love or romance) and marriage and young
adults
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Notes on Scopus

• Basic Search
• Build search in boxes with Boolean operators, OR,
  AND, NOT and multi-character wildcard
• Search defaults- Article title, Abstract,
  Keywords
• Note Limit, Refine Search History features
• Select to search
  Sociological Abstracts.
• Advanced Search
• Command line search not really recommended.

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About Sociological Abstracts

• Provides indexes abstracts to journal articles,
  book chapters, conference papers dissertations.
• Coverage, 1979-
• Culture, social structure, social
  differentiation, social psychology, sociology of
  the arts, business, education, violence and
  power
• Some overlap in literature coverage between
  Scopus Sociological Abstracts.

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Lets search
Finding love online
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Lets search
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Lets search
Learning to labour by Paul Willis
learning to labour and (willis paul or paul
willis)
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Lets search
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Search tips for Sociological Abstracts

• Quick Search
• Searches single words or phrases
• Quick search anywhere search
• Enter Boolean operators in single search box
• Advanced Search
• Search boxes allows for more complex searches
• Combine terms using Boolean operators from
  drop-down menu
• Select specific fields to search terms
• Check for more relevant
  headings

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What about Google Scholar?

• Attempts to provide a single search engine for
  scholarly literature.
• Note Not all results come from scholarly
  sources.
• Good for quick research.
• May offer a number of versions of the same
  article depending on where it was found.
• Search results may include links to full-text
  articles freely available on the Internet.
• Many links take you to publishers' websites where
  access requires a subscriber login.
• Use the PROXY BOOKMARKLET to access full-texts.
• Note It works only for source
• titles subscribed by NUS Libraries

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Proxy BookmarkletUse Library Proxy Bookmark to
access Full-text

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What is a Proxy Bookmarklet?

• Inserts the NUS library proxy stem
  (libproxy1.nus.edu.sg) into the URL of the
  article.

I want article X
I want article X
NUS Library Proxy server
Vendor
User
Okay you are recognized, here is article X.
Here is article X
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How to install the Proxy Bookmarklet in my
browser?

• Click on the link below and follow the
  instructions
• http//bit.ly/nuslibproxy

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Search PluginsFor Internet Explorer 7
Firefox 2.0 (beta)
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What are Search Plugins?

• Allows you to do a direct search from your
  internet browser search box
• Saves time from having to visit a page then
  inputting your search query
• How to install these plugins?
• http//bit.ly/searchplugin

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LINC
Library INtegrated Catalogue
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Library INtegrated Catalogue

• Use it to check
• Books
• Journals
• Microforms
• Multimedia
• Newspapers
• Theses

• Use it to view
• Table of Contents
• E-Journals
• E-Books
• Digitized videos

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Catalogue LINC
sorting
relevance ranking
tags
refining
recently added
format
summary
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• Finding Articles Made Easy!
• Federated search engine
• Search across multiple databases at once.
• Allows you to search by keyword, title, author or
  subject
• Allows you to choose databases

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InfoGate
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Getting Help
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Library Instruction ONline
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Subject Guides

• Good starting point for research in Sociology

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We are here

• Advisory Service atInformation Desk,Central
  Library,Level 5.
• Email us askalib_at_nus.edu.sg
• Tel [phone]