m1 oct. 2010

M1 Research Skills

Michele Laing

mlaing@uwaterloo.ca

What you’ll learn today

-How to manage your research

-Research resources

-Search tips

-Obtaining resources beyond UW

Before starting your research

- Say YES to Name Release

1. - Set up a RefWorks account

2. - Authenticate if working outside the School [ “Connect from Home”]

Start Here: www.lib/uwaterloo.ca/musagetes/index.html

Name Release

“Yes” means library staff can give out your phone # or e-mail address

Get a RefWorks Account

Create an account

- Add citations from Primo

- Import citations from databases

- Create folders by subject

- Automatically format your papers and bibliographies

RefWorks Tutorials

Authenticate your status

You must authenticate you’re a member of the uW community to access resources paid for by the library from outside of the School of Architecture

Connect from Home

Beginning your research

What do you know?

- book, article, webpage, conversation?

What concepts/keywords can you pull out? Synonyms?

- seniors, aged, old people

What do you need to know?

- definitions, data, geography

Resources

What resources will you need?

- books

- articles/newspapers

- authoritative/academic web information

- images

- maps/geographical info about site

- government statistics/survey data

Search strategy

1. Selected keywords

2. Combined with Boolean Operators [AND, OR, NOT]

3. Setting limits/using punctuation symbols as necessary

What does this look like?

Primo results

Mark records RefWorks

Other library catalogues

Why search them?

-

-

-

Architecture Guide

Click on “Find

Books” tab

WorldCat

WorldCat.org

Search results

Read online

WorldCat search results

Where is it?

Read it online

Read it online

Read it online

What if we don’t have it locally?

Getting resources beyond uW

Login to RACER

Login:

Your Watcard number

Password:

Your last name

Your Library:

Waterloo

Search the RACER catalogue

Find your title

Choose any title and click on “Get it” to access the

request form

RACER Request form

Choose your pickup location

Questions so far?

Theses

The most popular database

Search a database

Search results

Set up an Alert

Finding Journal Articles

Choose a subject

Choose a database

Explains how punctuation symbols can make your

search more effective

Search results

No links to full text; email your results or search these sources

in Primo

JStor

JStor search

Mark citations RefWorks

Follow up leads in the bibliography

But the journal isn’t available at uW?

Request an article thru RACER

- Use the “Blank Request Form”

- Fill in the required information manually

Newspapers

Web Resources

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com

- clicking on GetIt@Waterloo will often take you to the fulltext online through UW Library’s catalogue

Google Books: www.googlebooks.com

- can often see TOC or page previews

Evaluating web pages

Things to consider:

- coverage

- currency

- authority

- objectivity

- accuracy

Library Resources Guides

This PP will

be here

GIS Guide

Wrap Up

1. Be Prepared

- what am I looking for?

- what search terms/keywords should I use?

- what resources will I need?

2. Be Organized

- try RefWorks

3. Ask for Help!