JUMPSTART YOUR DISSERTATION

1
JUMPSTART YOUR DISSERTATION

• TIME SAVING METHODS FOR SEARCHING AND CITING

2
Presenters

• Danianne Mizzy, Engineering Librarian
• Song Yu, Chemistry Librarian

3
Outline

• Literature Review
• Searching
• Digital Dissertations
• Web of Science
• PubMed
• Citing using EndNote
• QA

4
Literature Review

• Overview of significant literature published on
  your topic.
• To establish novelty of your topic/approach
• To identify information and ideas that may be
  relevant to your project
• To identify methods that could be relevant to
  your project
• To avoid reinventing the wheel

5
Literature Search

• Finding materials relevant to the subject being
  explored
• For a dissertation
• Should be comprehensive and exhaustive
• Requires knowledge of all relevant sources

6
Literature Output

• Using bibliographic management software to
  import, organize and output your library of
  citations
• EndNote
• RefWorks
• Zotero Firefox
• Papers Macs

7
Informal Communication

• Early Communication of Research
• To Colleagues, Department, Other Researchers
• Oral , email, blogs, wikis
• Preprints/technical reports

8
Formal Communication

• Via Publication
• Theses/Dissertations
• Conference Proceedings
• Journal Articles
• Books
• Handbooks/Textbooks/Encyclopedias
• Patents

9
Where to find

• Theses and Dissertations
• CLIO (for Columbia dissertations)
• Digital Dissertations (includes Columbia)
• NDLTD (Networked Digital Library of Theses and
  Dissertations )
• Other open access sources

10
Where to find

• Conference Papers and Journal Articles
• Multidisciplinary databases
• Web of Science (ISI Citation Indexes)
• Scopus
• JSTOR
• GoogleScholar (http//scholar.google.com/)

11
Where to find

• Conference Papers and Journal Articles
• Discipline Specific Science
• Chemistry SciFinder Scholar
• Computing - ACM Digital Library
• Engineering- Compendex
• Medicine - PubMed
• Physics INSPEC
• and many more

12
Where to find

• Books (Handbooks, Encyclopedias, etc)
• CLIO, Columbias Library Catalog
• Libraries beyond Columbia
• WorldCat (use BorrowDirect or Interlibrary Loan
  for requests)
• Google Book Search, Amazon
• Ebook Collections

13
Digital Dissertations

• Citations for more than 2.5 million doctoral
  dissertations and masters theses
• 1861 to the present (masters theses from 1962)
• Over 1,000 North American graduate schools and
  European universities represented
• Dates of coverage
• 1861-1979 citations only
• 1980-1996 citations and abstracts
• 1997-present 24-page preview and full-text
  available registration required to download
  full-text

14
Digital Dissertations

• Searchable by author, title, institution, etc
• Author keywords or broad subjects
• Alerts

15
Digital Dissertations

• Export
• Export directly to ProCite, EndNote or Reference
  Manager
• In EndNote Dialog Box Select a Reference Library

16
Web of Science

• Science Citation Index Expanded
• 1899-present 8,060 major journals
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• 1956-present 2,697 journals selected
• Arts Humanities Citation Index
• 1975-present 1,470 journals selected

17
Web of Science

• Searchable by topic, author, title, etc.
• Can set up Alerts
• Must register
• From Search History

18
Web of Science

• Save to EndNote
• From Results list
• From Marked List
• Can select fields to include like references

19
PubMed

• Bibliographic information for life sciences
  literature from 1947
• 5000 journals, books, web pages
• NCBI and NLM
• Free to everyone

20
PubMed

• Limit your search by
• Article type
• Species
• Ages, etc.
• MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)
• Controlled vocabulary
• Caution! Not all citations have MeSH terms
• Alerts

21
PubMed

• Export/Import to EndNote
• From PubMed
• From Send to, select File.
• Select MEDLINE from the Format menu.
• Save it to your computer (.txt file)
• From EndNote
• File ? Import
• Find your file
• Import Option Find the filter PubMed (NLM)

22
Citing References

• Before you start
• GSAS Dissertation Office
• Dates and deadlines
• Formatting guidelines
• Style
• EndNote
• Find and remove duplicate citations
• How many libraries should I have in EndNote?
• ONE!
• Use Groups

23
EndNote Find Full Text

• Edit ? Preferences
• OpenURL Path
• http//rd8hp6du2b.search.serialssolutions.com/
• Highlight Citations
• Right Click ?Find Full Text

24
Cite While You Write (CWYW)

• Using EndNote in Microsoft Word
• Start
• With/without template
• EndNote tool bar

25

• Why spend a day in the library when you can learn
  the same thing by working in the laboratory for a
  month?
• --FH Westheimer

26
Summary

• Literature review
• Know the types of publications in your area
• Search in general and subject specific databases
• Use various resources
• Work with information sources
• Coverage, unique features
• Search methods
• Keep up with the new literature

27
Summary (continued)

• Work with bibliographic software
• Searching
• Import citations from different sources
• Organize your citations
• Writing
• Using template
• Insert citations

28
Questions?

• Dissertations Guide
• http//www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eguides/science/di
  ssertations.html
• Linked from Engineering Library Homepage

29
Contact Us

• Danianne Mizzy
• dmizzy_at_columbia.edu
• 422 Mudd
• 212-854-9087
• Song Yu
• sy2133_at_columbia.edu
• 422 Mudd
• 212-854-5778