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Chemistry: Co-op 2018

Subject Librarian

Profile Photo
Marie Speare
Contact:
Sciences and Technology Library
(204) 474-7063
(204) 290-4266 (mobile)

Profile

Profile Photo
Marie Speare
Contact:
Sciences and Technology Library
(204) 474-7063
(204) 290-4266 (mobile)

Introductions & Session Outline

Welcome to the Finding and Citing Academic Research Session!

Your presenter is either:

  • Marie Speare, librarian for chemistry, microbiology, and biochemistry
  • Grace Romund, librarian for environmental sciences, statistics, and mathematics
  • Ryan Schultz, librarian for physics & astronomy 

 

First Activity - Survey Time!

Please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/chembiochem and take the survey!

Answers will be kept completely anonymous. The survey should only take you about 5 minutes to complete.

Location Background Information on a Topic - Review Articles

Review Articles

Review articles are a special type of journal article that summarizes the state of the research in a particular area.  Some journals publish review articles and research articles in the same journal.  Other journals just publish review articles, eg. Annual Review of Biochemistry.

Locating Review Articles

The Libraries has several databases that allow you to limit your search to review articles only.  After you do a search for a topic, look for Limit by Document Type or Limit by Article Type on the left-hand side of the screen.  For instance, in the Scopus database you can limit by Document Type and select Review. 

Scopus Example

Limiting by document type in Scopus

PubMed Example

PubMed Limit by Article types

Web of Science Example

Limiting by Document Types in Web of Science

The databases listed below provide options to limit your search to review articles. 

Tracking Citations

Tracking Citations

You can find out who has cited a particular article in order to find related information on a topic by using several different databases including Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus

Subject Databases

Subject databases are great places to find academic research about topics. Below is a chart that shows you some of the common science subject databases that you may be interested in.

Subject Database Name Disciplines Key Features
Common Science Subject Databases
PubMed Health sciences, immunology, genetics, virology, cell and molecular biology, medicine, pharmacy Full text link to Publisher website
Scopus Interdisciplinary: sciences, social sciences, humanities, medicine, cell and molecular biology, genetics, microbiology, etc. Cited referencing search (Cited by)
Web of Science Interdisciplinary: sciences, biological sciences, genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, etc. Cited referencing search (Times Cited)
SciFinder Web chemistry, biochemistry 
Important Note: You will have to register before using this.
CAS search
IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) engineering, bioengineering, power & energy ability to search and find standards
BIOSIS Previews biological sciences, ecology, evolution, marine sciences on Web of Science platform
Agricultural & Environmental Science environmental sciences, toxicology, pollution, environment, water, microbiology, bacteriology some full text directly within
Google Scholar

all disciplines

available online for free

Search Tips and Strategies

Ever wondered how to make the search process faster, better results, and less reading. Look no further than by reading the below search tips and strategies.

Search Tip #1: Use "quotation marks" around words

Quotation marks are a great way to keep phrases together like "polymerase chain reaction"

How would this work?
If you searched the University of Manitoba Libraries for polymerase chain reaction you would get over 1,150,000 items!
Now if you did the same search with quotation marks, i.e. typed in the search box "polymerase chain reaction" you get over 1,070,000 items. That's over 70,000 less.

Search Tip #2: Use limits and refine options

Limits and refine options built into search engines can help you to narrow down to items that are of interest to you.
Top useful limits and refine options:

  • resource type, often articles
  • date/time (choose a year range)
  • subject/subject area/categories, limits to an actual subject rather than a keyword

How would this work?
If you searched the University of Manitoba Libraries for "polymerase chain reaction" we saw that there were over 1 million items.  There is no way you would read them all and so limit down to ones that would be useful. Let's try the following steps.
First limit to use resource type, you are interested in articles (now you have over 850,000 items).
Next limit to use is publication date, you are interested if published between 2014 to 2017 (now you have over 230,000 items).
Now refine by subject "polymerase chain reaction" (now you have over 40,000 items).  Go back to the subject and click on more options, let's select "polymerase chain reaction-usage" (now you have over 1,000 items).  Keep using this subject option until you get articles you are happy with.

Search Tip #3: Use synonyms for words

Often in the sciences there are multiple names used for the same thing, like a scientific species name say Ursus maritimus which is commonly referred to as polar bear.  Be sure to search for both of these.  Synonyms can be connected with the Boolear operator OR.  Example: ursus maritimus OR polar bear

Search Tip #4: Sort results by relevance

Finding information for a topic

Topic searching can be challenging. Here are some questions that are useful to ask yourself before starting to search.

  • What is your topic?
  • What do you already know about the topic? Is it a little or a lot?
  • What do you need to find out about the topic? 
    • Background information (who, what, why, how questions) - look for review articles, books, encyclopedias, websites
    • Research information - look for journal articles, sometimes government reports
  • What kind of sources?
    (Do you need research papers/journal articles, or are books, websites, government reports acceptable?)
  • Where are you going to search? 

Citing/Referencing

Citing and referencing is very important. Here are the main reasons that answers why you need to cite/reference.

  • Give credit where credit is deserved for the ideas and research.
  • Shows how your research builds on others research and that you are not just replicating research.
  • Allows your reader to find the original source.

Canadian Journal of Microbiology reference style

This is a journal reference style and information about this style is found on the Canadian Journal of Microbiology's website.  We have put together a style sheet that shows you how to do both in-text citations and references.  See your handout package for a copy.

NOTE: The following journals use identical citing/referencing rules:

  • Biochemistry and Cell Biology,
  • Botany,
  • Canadian Journal of Zoology,
  • Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,
  • Genome.

When looking up journal abbreviations for Canadian Journal of Microbiology reference/citation style use NLM Catalog.

Main notes about Canadian Journal of Microbiology reference style

In-text Citation References
  • Author year - Example/ (Jones 2015)
  • semi-colons between multiple citations
    - Example/ (Jones 2015; Spear et al. 2017)
  • use et al. when you have three or more authors
  • personal communications are included in-text
    only - Example/ (J.S. Jones, personal communication, 2016)
  • section is called References
  • arranged alphabetically by author
  • use initials for authors' first and middle names
  • Journal Articles: journal titles are abbreviated,
    volume numbers are bolded, uses DOIs when available

Ecology - reference style for this journal

If you are asked to use the reference style following the journal, Ecology.  Below is a helpsheet that will assist with understanding how the in-text citations and references are formed.

When looking up journal abbreviations for Ecology journal reference/citation style use CASSI.

ACS Style

ACS Style is the standard style used in chemistry.  For more information view the Introduction to ACS Style subject guide.

Journal names are abbreviated in ACS Style.  Use the CASSI site listed above to locate abbreviations for the journal names.

 

Ways to Find Journal Articles

There are lots of ways to find a known and unknown journal article including:

Finding Full Text Options

  • Search for the title of the article in the Library search box 
  • Search for the name of the journal in the Library search box
  • Use Search Citation feature (was Article Linker) on Advanced Search site 
  • Use the Library Access Browser Extension (https://www.leanlibrary.com/ )

Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference/citation management software, completely free, easy to use, and integrates with Microsoft Word.

Download a revised Canadian Journal of Microbiology style to your account. 

The revised style fixes the in-text citations to match the guidelines.  To download the style copy this link: (http://csl.mendeley.com/styles/1809811/canadian-journal-of-microbiology-revised2018), go to the Mendeley desktop, click on View, Citation styles, More Styles, click on the Get More Styles tab and paste the link into the Download Style box and click on Download.

To use this style after you have installed it into Mendeley, click on the Installed tab and click on the Canadian Journal of Microbiology-revised2018 style and select "Use this style".

Workshop Assessment

All students please complete the workshop evaluation form at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Co-op2018eval