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Engineering Communication EAL ENG 3003
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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 (2) What 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. 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 consider the employers comment in
business
and management journals
Business
Source Complete 1965-
Emerald 1989-
for social issues 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.
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. |
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