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Information for Staff: Supporting your research

Research Help
Your librarian can help with your research. Book a one-to-one appointment to ensure that you are up-to-date with the latest resources available in the library. We can help with:
  • Literature Searching
  • Setting up search and subject alerts on most databases
  • Setting up TOC / new content alerts on the key journals in your area
  • Tracking citations on key articles
  • Setting up email alerts from key journals

Click here to find the contact details of your librarian. .

Which referencing management tool?
Keeping up to date

There are a number of current awareness services that you can use to keep up-to-date in your research area.  Click on the tabs for a selection of resources that you can use in the library. 

Many academic journals allow you to register your details so that you are automatically sent the table of contents (TOC) by email when new issues are published.  If we subscribe to the journal, you can usually link directly to the full text of the article.  Search using a web browser for the page of your favourite journal and look for links to TOC alerts.

You can also set up journal alerts from library databases such as Art Full Text, Business Source Premier, Medline, SocIndex, SportDiscus, and Hospitality and Tourism Complete.  These will automatically notify you each time a new issue is available.  Click on the publications link at the top of the page, find your publication and click on the title.  You will see a button called Share – click on that and choose Email Alert.  You will need to register or sign in.   For Emerald, click on Journals & Books and find the journal title, click on the link and then select ToC Alert.  Again you will need to register to access this feature.

Zetoc is the British Library's table of content service for further and higher education institutions.  You can search for the latest table of contents from over 28,000 journals.  Click here for more information. 

If there is a particular topic that you are interested in, rather than repeat your search each week to view new content, you can set up daily, weekly or monthly alerts with a database to automatically run the search and email you if anything has been published since the last alert. 

Use Discover to search the majority of library databases and save your search - here's how in 4 easy steps:  

  1. Run your search until you get the results you require.  Once you had created a search you are happy with, click on the Create Alert button next to the search fields and fill in the form. 
  2. You will be prompted to Sign In – you will have to register if you do not already have an account.  Click on Create a new Account and fill in the fields.  You only have to do this once, but Discover does require a very strong password with letters and numbers.
  3. Once you have set up your account, you will see the Create Alert box. Select the settings you require and click on Save Alert.
  4. Log in again to edit or delete your search alert if required, for example if you want to receive alerts more regularly.​

Rather than search for a particular topic, you may just want to browse the newest articles or reports.  IBIS World lists the most recent industry reports below the main search box.  These have usually been updated in the last couple of weeks and cover all UK industries from Construction and Engineering to Retail, Arts and Recreation, and Health.  For Emerald, click on your subject area on the home page and you can view either the Most Recent or the Most Read articles in your area. Artstor's blog highlights key collections on the database, and Childlink lists the most recent papers published on the site. Community Care Inform: Children publishes Research Reviews where the latest research relating to social work and children is evaluated and discussed. 

  

There are many tools to help you organise your work.  You can save references in Word which can be easily imported as citations or into bibliographies. You can create profiles in Discover to save items to view later, and export citations (this will include Emerald references).  If you have a large number of articles, websites and book records to keep track of, we recommend you start using referencing software.  Using something like Menderley will allow you to create your own online library, where you can store and manage everything you want to keep in one place, saving you time.  Referencing software allows you to:

  • Collect, store and manage references in folders
  • Manage via a web account which is accessible via any device linked to the Internet
  • Easily cite references and create bibliographies in a range of reference styles
  • Link directly to the full-text or PDF of the document. 
  • Add personal notes or highlight text

Some referencing management tools also have social networking features. 

Which referencing management tool is best for you?  The chart below may answer some of your questions, or click on the tabs for more detailed information and guides. 

Name of Software Use this for Notes
Microsoft Word - References tool                                                   Adding citations and references to your Word document as you write. Add details of the publication using a simple form with source types such as Book, Journal Article and Website. Select the output style (eg.Harvard). Can also generate bibliographies.  Good for shorter assignments and encourages you to keep track of all your references.                                      
Discover and Emerald folders Saving articles to folders which can then be easily accessed at any time. Create hierarchical folders to organise articles by module and topic. Provides a Cite feature so you can copy and paste references in the correct format.  Citations can be exported into Menderley or Zotero.  Good for easily retrieving articles which are available from Discover.
Menderley Adding documents that you have saved on your computer using drag-and-drop, or install the web importer to directly import from the web.  Organise articles into folders.  Menderley saves PDF versions where available so you can have an online library. You can also save directly to Menderley from Emerald.  Saves PDFs and offers a number of social features.

 

This is a very useful tool within Microsoft word and is worth getting familiar with as soon as you start writing your first assignment. 

In-text citation

Along the top of your Word document you will see tab called References (you may be familiar with using this to add footnotes).  To add an in-text citation, put your cursor at the point where you want your reference to appear. Click on References and choose Harvard.   Select Insert Citation.  Choose Add New Source. Choose the type of source that you are citing - book, journal article, web-site etc. Then fill in the details.  Once you have saved your citation, the information will be available for you to use again. 

Bibliography / Reference List

Once you have added your citations, you can create a bibliography with that information. Put the cursor where you want the bibliography to go, then select References and choose a format. Then click on Bibliography and click on Insert Bibliography.

Adding new citations

If you add new citations to your document, you can update your bibliography by right clicking anywhere in your list and selecting Update Field. 

What are folders in Discover?

When you search Discover (or any ESBCOhost database such as SocIndex or Business Source) you will notice that a small folder icon appears next to all your search results.  This icon allows you to save your results into folders which you can access any time you log into any EBSCO database.  

In Discover you also have the option to save and re-run searches, and set up search and journal alerts so you can keep researching even when you’re not logged in.

Saving items to your Folder

Start your search.  Remember you can limit your search by Date of Publication, by Source (Academic Journals, Magazines, Trade Publications, Books), and by Subject, Language, and more.

 

To save individual records, click on the Add to Folder image next to each record. If you have already created folders, you will be given the option to save the record in any of those folders. Otherwise, just save to My Folder. 

Viewing your folder

View your folder by either clicking on Folder View in the top right of the screen, or the My Folder icon in the top bar.  You should see a list of all the records that you have saved and you can access the full-text from here.

The My Custom feature provides the ability to create numerous folders, each on a particular topic, in which various results can be stored.  You can also create sub-folders to manage more results.  Click on the New link to the right of the My Custom link. You will see a Create New Folder Screen to enter your topic name and a description if you wish.

You can now move your results to the new folder by clicking in the box beside the title of the result, and clicking on the Move To drop down list. You will see a list of your folders displayed.

From Folder View, you can go back to your search results by clicking on the back button.

For more information on Folders, click on the Question mark next to your name in the top left of the screen.

Printing, Email and Saving Your Results.

You can Print, Email, or Save your results.  You can also export to referencing software such as Zotero and EndNote Web. If you have Mendeley Desktop on your device, you can also download to there.   Click on the icons to the right of the screen.  .

About Menderley
 
Before you get started, this terminology from the Menderley help site is very useful.
 
  • Mendeley Desktop: Mendeley Desktop is the downloaded part of the software installed onto your computer. Download Mendeley Desktop here.
  • Mendeley Web: This is the Mendeley website where you can access the web version of your library, edit your profile and search for papers, groups or people. You can also access Mendeley's social features.
  • Sync: The process of synchronizing your Mendeley data across devices.
  • Web Importer: The browser bookmarklet that lets you quickly import documents from anywhere on the web.
  • Word Citation Plugin: A plugin you can install that allows you to create and format your citations and bibliography according to your chosen style.

Starting Out

  1. Create an account at Mendeley.com, download Desktop to your main PC or laptop and sign in.  
  2. You will see the Desktop interface - the main window is your 'library'.  From here you can drag files from your computer or add them from the File menu, create folders and organise records into different folders, and open PDF documents directly within the library.  
  3. Add the Web importer.https://www.mendeley.com/import/  This will allow you to add documents from anywhere on the web.  All new documents will go directly into the Recently Added folder but you can also select a pre-existing folder if you have already created one. 
  4. Remember to sync documents to send your library to the cloud, so you can access all your content from other devices. 

The Mendeley video below is a 1 minute introduction to Mendeley.  More help videos are available on their YouTube site here. 

Uploading articles from Discover

If you find an article you want to save in your Discover results, click on the Export option in the right hand column.  Click on the first option (Direct export in RIS format) and select Save.  You will see the export file download (and which will also appear in your downloads folder):  click on that and the reference will be imported into Mendeley Desktop.  Note that Mendeley doesn't need to be open but it does need to be installed on the machine that you are using. 

Uploading webpages or PDFs from the Internet - in progress

Creating citations and bibliographies - in progress

Find Related Research - in progress

Collaboration and Sharing Tools - in progress

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