Searchguide – BTH English

Zotero

The reference management system Zotero helps you collect, sort, cite and share your research sources. References are stored online and locally on your computer. If you want to be able to use the sync function you create a personal account on Zotero’s web site. Click on ”Register” in the upper right corner of the page and enter your data.

Zotero

Link to “A quick start guide”

A quick start guide

You can also download a plugin for Word which allows you to work with Zotero directly in Word. Both citations and bibliographies can be inserted directly and bibliographies are generated automatically when you add citations to your text.

Zotero Word Plugin

Zotero is an extension to the web browser Mozilla Firefox which therefore also must be installed on your computer.

Mozilla Firefox

Refero is a web based tutorial which helps you understand what plagiarism is. You also get tips on how you can quote and paraphrase correctly in order to avoid plagiarism. The tutorial contains 16 pages and takes about 30 minutes to go through. You may choose if you want to use the tutorial with or without flash-animations.

Link to Refero – an Anti-plagiarism Tutorial (opens in new window).

Jenny Gunnarsson
2010-10-14

The library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has done a very nice and easy to use tutorial on how to use EndNote. In the tutorial you find texts and illustrations as well as short films on how to get started with EndNote, how to create a library, cite while you write etc.
EndNote X2 tutorial

In this guide we look into these parts in the art of referencing:

* Introduction
* What’s in a reference?
* How to make a reference (from book)
* How to make a reference (from catalogue)
* Using references
* Using references-test your knowledge
* Using a bibliography
* Reference citation styles

The easy guide to referencing

In the Swedish library catalogue for university libraries, LIBRIS, there is a very useful tool for creating citations to books and other publications. With the aid of this function you won’t need to write down all your citations by hand, as you can simply cut and paste them into your text or import them to a reference management system like EndNoteWeb.

Creating citations in LIBRIS
Start by finding the publication you want to create a citation for. In this example we want to create a citation for the book Crimeware by Markus Jakobsson and Zulfikar Ramzan. When you’ve found the book in LIBRIS, click the link “Cite” in the grey bar below the title information.

Now we’ll get a page where we can choose between two different options: Save as file or cut and paste.

From the column on the right you can easily copy the citation in the format you want and paste it directly into your reference list. At this point there are only a few reference systems to choose from though.

In the box to the left you have the option of downloading the citation as a file to your computer. This file can then be imported to a reference management system.

You can choose to save the citations in the following formats:

• Plain text - A simple text format for the easy identification of a work
• Harvard - A common reference or citation format which presents sources in a standard manner
• Oxford - Another common reference or citation format which presents sources in a standard manner
• BibTex - A reference format used together with the typesetting system “LaTeX”
• RefWorks - A tagged bibliographic format for handling references
• RIS - A tagged bibliographic format for handling references in reference handling systems such as EndNote, ProCite and RefManager
• MARC-XML - The MARC record in the standard MARC-XML format

(Taken from the LIBRIS help pages)

Importing citations from LIBRIS to EndNoteWeb
Since all students at BTH have free access to EndNoteWeb we’ll take a closer look at this program.

To import the citation to EndNoteWeb choose “.RIS” in the box “Format” and click “Save as file”.

Now choose where on your computer you want to save the .RIS-file. When you’ve done this you can log on to EndNoteWeb and upload the citation. In EndNoteWeb, choose the tab “Collect” and then “Import References”. Find your saved .RIS-file and choose “RefMan RIS” in the box “Filter”. Click “Import” to add the citation to your list.

Zotero
If you’re using Mozilla Firefox you can download a free plugin called Zotero for your browser. Zotero is a reference management system which is fully compatible with LIBRIS. When you’ve found a certain book or received a list of hits you can easily import the information from LIBRIS to Zotero by clicking on the small icon which appears in the in the browser’s adress field. You can read more about Zotero on www.zotero.org.

Links

LIBRIS

LIBRIS help pages

EndNoteWeb

Zotero

/Ted Gunnarsson
2008-12-11

To write successfully is to a great extent about capturing and keeping the reader’s interest. This can be achieved in different ways, for example by presenting your material in a clear, well-arranged manner, and by avoiding to use difficult and complicated language.

Writing a report or a paper is a time consuming and delicate task. You need to be well prepared and know a lot about the subject you intend to write about. Preparations such as literature searches and/or interviews in order to orientate one self on what has been published on the subject is one important part.

To critically evaluate and examine the results that have emerged is another important part of the essay writing process.

It is also important to know about how to make a correct disposition, plus to know how to quote other authors and how to state references correctly.

The language of a scientific report is important, because the text should give a serious impression in order to be taken seriously. A language which is too easy-going and informal can give a totally wrong impression of the text. There is also the risk of using too stilted and complicated language. Ask yourself: Who am I writing for? Try to be matter-of-fact and informative and it will hopefully turn out all right.

Anne-Marie Pettersson
2010-02-04

Search Uppsök when you want to find papers and theses from Swedish universities and colleges. Search Arkiv-EX when you want to find theses from Blekinge Institute of Technology.

Uppsök

Uppsök functions as a search engine that retrieves students’ theses in full text from Swedish universities and colleges.

URL for Uppsök:
http://uppsok.libris.kb.se/sru/uppsok

Arkiv-EX

Search Arkiv-EX when you want to read students’ theses from Blekinge Institute of Technology.
The contents of Arkiv-Ex can also be found in Uppsök.

Publishing your thesis in Arkiv-Ex

If you are a student at BTH, you can enter your paper yourself via a web form. Instructions are available on our web site. When you have filled out the form and attached your files the information is checked by your student administrator before the information is published in the database.

Search engines

Documents in Arkiv-Ex are searchable for search engines on the Internet.

URL for Arkiv-EX:
http://www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf

When you are writing a report or paper you should state clearly what you have not thought out yourself. Using somebody else’s ideas or thoughts, without naming the source, is not allowed. Readers of your text may also have an interest in getting deeper into the subject you are writing about. Then it is helpful if there are clear references for further reading.

Read the rest of this entry »

This text deals with the subject of research methodology on a comprehensive level and briefly discusses what to consider when you are a higher education student who is about to write a paper. All the information was collected from the sources given at the bottom of the page.

What is research?

In a very simplified manner, research can be described as the search for and development of new knowledge. By systematically and methodically investigating the credibility of a theory with a critical attitude you extract new knowledge.

Different types of projects

There are quite many different types of projects where you should come into contact with the concept research methodology, e.g. research, investigation projects, development projects or quality investigations. It is perhaps not always easy to draw the line between these different types, but it facilitates your further work with the research methodology to begin with establishing what type of project you have ahead, because the choice of project can affect the choice of research method.

Choice of research method

You often distinguish between two different methodological ways to tackle research. The two methods are based on whether it is “soft” or “hard” data that is investigated and they are called qualitative, respectively quantitative methods. There is no real competition between these two methods, but rather they have different strong and weak points. Because of this they are suitable for different research situations. To put it simply you could say that the choice of research method can be controlled by what way and to what extent you want to work with numbers and statistics. The basic idea though, is that the choice of problem, after a review of the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods, should control the choice of method.

Qualitative methods

Qualitative methods are suitable when you want to get a deeper understanding of a problem or phenomenon. It is not so much about deciding whether the result is possible to generalize, but rather to get a deeper understanding combined with an understanding of the context of the problem/phenomenon. The qualitative methods are signified by a closeness to the information sources and therefore different types of interviews are good examples of this method.

Quantitative methods

As opposed to the qualitative methods, quantitative methods are signified by a high degree of formalization and structure. The researcher has considerably higher control of the research situation and the methods decide in advance what possible answers there can be for questions about the chosen problem. The researcher has a distance to the information sources and selects these sources well. Quantitative methods are thus well suited for formalized analyses, comparisons and the possibility of generalization in combination with statistical measuring methods. One example of a quantitative method is questionnaire investigations.

The research process

Regardless of what you decide to investigate you must go through a number of steps in the research process. First and foremost, you must identify and acquire knowledge about the problem (literary survey), then you need to specify the problem and find out what it is you want to investigate.

The figure shows how the problem is successively delimited through the literary survey and how it is finally possible to specify:

After this you need to make your mind up about how you are going to investigate the specific problem. How is the actual investigation going to be organized and what techniques for information gathering are you going to use? After this step the realization starts, whereupon processing and analysis follows, and last but not least accounting and reporting.

Read more:

Search ebrary for books about research methodology.

Annika Lindquist
2005-01-15

Consult the Search guide, librarians, your tutor, your teachers and handbooks in essay writing to solve these issues.

• Do you have a clearly defined seach topic? When you have a clearly defined search topic and you know what you want to address in e.g. a paper, it is easier to start searching for information. Discuss the topic with your teacher/tutor if you need help. You can also read about the formulation of essay topics in handbooks about essay writing.
• Do you know approximately how much and what kind of information you need? What level – a doctoral thesis or an entry from an encyclopaedia? Which are the best places to search? A search engine on the Internet, a reference database or some other source? Have you chosen the information sources that are best suited for your information need? Read more about choosing information sources in the part about Search strategy.
• Find out how the search technique works in the information sources you are using. Many databases have roughly the same functions which facilitate searching and enable very precise searches, but you search in different ways. How does the database you are searching work? Can you use truncation? How can you combine search terms? You can read more about this in the part about Search technique.
• Set aside time for choosing good search terms based on your search topic. Finding the right search terms can be crucial for finding the information you need. Have you found synonyms and alternative terms? Checked index and thesaurus in the database you are using? Read more about this in the part about Search terms.
• Documenting your search makes searching much easier because then you know what search term combinations you have already tried and what databases you have used. E.g. “teacher role” and “distance education” in ERIC gave the following results… If you need to return to a search you can easily check how and where you were searching.
• Make a careful selection of information and evaluate the information you find critically. Does it answer your questions? Is it credible? Up-to-date? Read more about this in the part about criticism of the sources or in the part about evaluating information sources from the Internet. What criteria do you use when you evaluate information?
• Remember to make notes about where you have found the information you are using so that you can refer to those sources correctly. It should be easy for the reader to see what are your own thoughts and conclusions and what you have found in other sources. It should also be easy for the reader to find the sources if they want to use them for further reading or check the information you have used. Read more about citing sources in the part about References. What style of references do you use?

Checklist useful for information seeking:

Jenny Löfkvist
2005-06-27