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Engineering information resources


Engineering Communication EAL  ENG 3003

Useful Shortcuts

Databases - which provide references to journal articles with some links to the full text

for sources of general comment see the databases which cover a wide range of journal and newspaper articles such as

Academic Search Premier

Academic OneFile

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre

eLibrary

Expanded academic ASAP

Scopus

ScienceDirect
 

There are a number of specialised databases, by subject content or by type of material.

 for engineering aspects try

Compendex: engineering index

INSPEC

CEDB: Civil Engineering DataBase

ENGINE (IEAust)


 for business and management aspects try

Business Source Complete

Emerald FullText


for social and community issues try

ERIC - education
       
Geobase - geography, communities

PsycINFO - psychology

Sociological abstracts- social issues 


 for Australian aspects try 


APA-FT

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre

ENGINE (IEAust)

 

 for international newspaper coverage see

Factiva


 for citation searching see

Web of Science




Library Catalogue

Intercampus Requests



Professional ethics


Producing a report

Essay, thesis, report writing - some ideas

Harvard reference system

Image and Copy Centre






Need help?

Ask your Librarian



Finding information

To get an understanding of aspects of your topic, some background information is useful so, try encyclopaedias and handbooks. (1)

For more detailed discussion find other books through the Library Catalogue (2)

Once you know which aspects of the topic you want to develop for your report, you will need to read comment and opinion written in journal articles.  Use specialised indexes, known as Databases, to find out what articles and papers might be relevant. (3)

(1) Handbooks and Encyclopaedias
Engineering handbooks aimed at professional engineers are useful sources of reliable information.  For a list of available engineering handbooks in electronic format, click here.

In addition there are still some useful titles in print format eg. -
in commerce and business
Encyclopedia of business.  2 volumes
Reference collection 650.03 E56
        
in social sciences
Encyclopedia of psychology
Reference collection 150.03 K23e


(2What does the Library provide (in electronic or print format)
 At the Library Home page there are two search options; the Catalogue and Summon.

Summon
The Search bar across the Library home page uses the Summon program to find a selection of newspaper comment, journal articles and books that may be relevant to your topic. 
In addition to the content of the Library Catalodue, Summon provides fulltext of some articles from some journals and some newspapers from some publishers for some years.

'Find everything' does not mean that you will find everything that is available through all of the Library's resources.

To use Summon,
Leave the default at Find Everything;  then in the search bar, type in words (keywords or a phrase) to indicate your topic, eg.
characteristics of the graduate engineer

Click on [go] to get a list of results across a range of time and types of material. 

For more information
Put your cursor over the title of the article to bring up the preview giving an abstract and all of the subject headings for the article.

For the full text
Click on'Full text' in the yellow circle or click on the title, to bring up the link to the full text where this is available.

Refine your search
From the column on the left-hand side, click in the box to the left of  'Limit to articles from scholarly publications' to restrict the results to academic articles only.

Collect a set of useful articles

Put your cursor over the record of an interesting item, to bring up two icons in the top right hand corner; click on the icon at the far right.  Before you end your search, scroll down to the bottom right-hand side of the screen and click on Saved items to get the Email and Print links.

Summon is useful for a quick, simple search; to do a specific search with more flexibility and with the ability to transfer your search strategy to databases, use the Library Catalogue.


Catalogue
At the Library Home page there are seven rectangular boxes across the top of the screen; click on the one labelled [Catalogue] to bring up the  Basic Search bars

At  by:  pull down on the arrow-head and select  Keyword (use and, or, not, " ")
This  is a specific search system in which you  specify the exact words and the relationship of those words.
Before you start a Keyword search -
               
Think about the concepts in your topic
Think of the terms, words and phrases, that could be used in the title of a paper that you would want to read for your topic.  These are keywords
               
This keyword search strategy applies in the commercial Databases so develop your search strategy here, then you can copy and paste your search strategy from the Catalogue to the Databases.


At the Search for: bar type in your keywords.
<>Type the computer command  and  between each keyword to tell the system to find only those Catalogue records which include each word you have selected. eg.
<>
engineers  and  characteristics

At by: pull down and select Keyword (use and, or, not, " ")

Click on the [Search] button to bring up the results, that is the titles that match your search strategy.

The Brief Record format indicates the location of the book and whether it is on loan.
        
Click on the title for more details in the Full Record.
        
The Full Record describes the book and lists the Subject Heading(s): which may give leads to more books on the topic. 

Click on a Subject Heading: to bring up a list of headings from which you can find other relevant material.
       
Click on Requests: to get an item that is on loan or in the Joint Store.
           
Click on History: to see your search strategies in this session.  Click on a search strategy to get the results of that search.
         
Click on Other Catalogues to see there any useful material at Flinders and UniSA libraries.  Use History: to re-run your Keyword search strategy. 
You can borrow from the other university libraries with your University of Adelaide student card.

Improve your search strategy  to get 'better' results
Think about other words that an author might use in their title, which would be of interest to you, eg.
        
engineer  and  graduate  and  characteristics

Where the search word could be singular or plural, use the truncation symbol * to tell the Catalogue to find all words beginning with the letters you have typed, eg.
            
engineer*  and  characteristics*  and  graduate*

Alternatively you can broaden the search by deleting a search term, eg.
        
engineer*  and  characteristics*

There might be other words which authors could use for each concept so combine search terms with the operators and, or, " "   eg.
      
(profession*  or  graduat*)  and  (characteristic*  or attribute*   or    skill*and  engineer*
            
Remember to use brackets/parentheses ( ) around words separated with the OR  command

Where one word will always follow another in your search terms you can use the phrase search command " "    eg.
              
"problem solv*"


(3) Databases listing journal articles and papers
You cannot use the Library Catalogue directly to find out which journal or newspaper articles are available through the Library.  To do this you need to search individual Databases. 

The Library subscribes to a number of these commercial services which list millions of articles. In many cases the Library's subscriptions provide access to the full text of the article through the Database.
Where this is not the case,  to find out if the Library provides access to a specific item, search the Library Catalogue by: Journal or Newspaper Title

First,
   which Database to use?
Your topic looks at many issues so consider using databases indexing business issues, social issues, politics, psychology, etc.  Does the Database cover recent articles?  Is an Australian database appropriate? 

Some databases that may be useful -
for a wide range of issues, including public comment see

for comment in technical and engineering articles try -
CEDB: civil engineering database (civil engineering & environmental issues)  1973-
Compendex: engineering index  (the international engineering index)1884-
INSPEC  (electrical engineering & electronics)1898-
ScienceDirect (Elsevier publications)  1823-
ENGINE: Australian engineering database
consider the employers comment in business and management journals
Emerald 1989-
for social issues
 ERIC  1966-
GeoBase 1980-
PSYCInfo 1983-

for an Australian focus
APA-FT: Australian Public Affairs, 1978- with full text 1995-
ENGINE: Australian engineering database

This is only a selection of available databases.
           
If you need information not covered by the databases above or in the column to the left, check the [Resource guides] on the Library Home page to see the databases suggested for other Disciplines, or contact the Engineering Librarian
 
Second,
   searching effectively.
Databases use the the same basic search strategy as used when searching in the Library's Catalogue by Keyword (use and, or, not, " ")  so start by pasting in a copy of your search strategy from the Library Catalogue,
- think of additional search words and other words that could be used for a concept
         
- combine search terms with the commands  and,  or,  " "
        
 remember to use brackets ( ) around search keywords separated by the or command,
                        
- use the asterisk * for truncation
eg.
(engineer*  or  designer*)  and  (graduate*  or profession* and  (knowledg*  or  attribut*)  and   (milit*  or  municipal*  or  academ*  or  commerc*)  and  (ethic*  or  philosoph*

Remember that journal articles are usually on a specific topic - avoid using general search terms.

Think of words and phrases that an author could use in the title of an article that might give the information you need.
             
Consider searching for a named device, project, company, structure, place name etc, as well as more widely for the type of project and type of utility.
            
Use the * the truncatation symbol to pick up alternative endings, such as singular and/or plural.

Next,
  dealing with the results
                   
Look at the titles - are there other, useful words in the titles and abstracts of the first articles you retrieve?  Consider 'improving' your search strategy!
                     
Your initial results give a  Brief Record; in most Databases you can click on the article title to display the Full Record which will include subject terms.  Click on a subject term to find other articles on that same topic.
                       
Look for the 'boxes' to mark, that is to collect a set of useful records.
               
Look for icons and instructions for emailing, printing or saving your results.


Finally,
  once your Database search has given some references, you need to find the full text of the article or conference paper.
         
In many cases the Library's subscription to the database includes full text access, so there may be a link to the article.
       
Alternatively, look for the blue rectangle labelled [Check fulltext options] Click on [Check fulltext options] to see if the Library does provide access to the full text of the article in electronic format.
             
Remember, the Library may have the journal in print form, so go to the Library Catalogue and search by: Journal or Newspaper Title.
- for journals available in electronic form the Library Catalogue record provides a Link to e-Resource: and indicates the years available electronically.
- for journals in print form the Library Catalogue record lists the Location: (which library), Call Number: (where in that library) and what the Library Has: (which issue our set starts with, and the last issue received)

        
Check the date and volume number of your reference against the Catalogue information to make certain that the Library provides access to the article you want.

The Barr Smith Library does not hold all journals listed in the databases.
To find out if a journal is available in Adelaide, use the Other Catalogues option to search the catalogues of Flinders University and UniSA libraries.

When you have collected sufficient ideas, you need to put it all together.

Report writing
If you need some ideas for ways of presenting the arguments in your essay or seminar, try some of the guides to report writing and presentation.


Referencing styles
When you are listing works that you have consulted for information for your essay, you should use a definite referencing or citation style. A referencing style is simply a standardised way of writing down the elements of information about a book or journal or electronic source.

The Library provides a guide with a range of examples in An introduction to the author-date (Harvard) referencing system  which is widely used in the engineering literature.

If you are using EndNote to manage your references,  the Library provides some suggestions on training and help and an EndNote Tutorial.