Transcript Reference Interview - McMaster University

Electrical Engineering 4BI6
How to Find Refereed
Articles for Your Design
Project
Linda Michtics, Engineering Liaison Librarian
Thode Library
Obectives
By the end of this session, you will be
able to:
 define what a refereed (peer reviewed)
article is
 find article databases
 search for articles in a database
 find RACER, Refworks and patents
databases
What are
Refereed Articles ???
Magazine VS Scholarly publication
Refereed Articles
 Written by and for researchers/academics
 Longer articles written in a formal scholarly
style to share facts and research with the
academic community
 Specific, in depth
 Often include charts and graphs to support
research findings
 Usually no advertisements
 Include references and bibliography
 Reviewed by peers in the field for quality,
relevance and appropriateness of journal
The database to check
to determine if a
journal is refereed
The link to the database
The icon that indicates that a
journal is refereed.
How to Find Article Databases
Steps
 Click “Articles/Databases” tab on the
McMaster library homepage
 Search databases by subject if you are not
sure which database to choose
 Search database by name if you know which
database you are looking for
The subjects
You can type the name of
a database if you know it.
Best Bets for your Assignment
 Compendex
 IEEE Xplore
 INSPEC
These three
are good for
engineering
info
 Medline or Pubmed (medicine)
 BIOSIS (life sciences and biology)
 Science Citation Index Expanded
(includes biology, biotechnology,
medicine)
These
three
are good
for
medical
info
How to Search for Articles
in a Database
Compendex powered by
Engineering Village
Constructing a Search
 Identify main concepts
 Identify synonyms for these concepts (tip: use





online thesaurus)
When phrase searching, enclose phrase in
quotation marks eg. “human computer interface”
Use boolean operators: and, or, not
Use proximity operators eg. near
Use asterisk symbol * (truncation) for plurals or
alternative endings : * eg. canad* gets canada,
canadian, canadians
Use wildcard symbol ? to replace a single
character eg. wom?n for woman and women
Do you know why we put *s here?
Tips for Too Few Results
20
Tips for Too Many Results
“One Good Article” Strategy
 Find one good article
 Use hyperlinked words from descriptors
(main heading; controlled terms,
uncontrolled terms, etc.) or authors to find
other relevant articles
Click here and you will get the full-text
of the journal article.
Set up a RACER account and our
library will order research
materials that we don’t own.
Click here for information on RACER.
Google Scholar
 Searches across many disciplines and
sources from one place
 Includes peer-reviewed articles, theses,
books, etc. published by professional
societies, preprint repositories, universities
 Can link directly to full-text papers that
McMaster subscribes to if you see get it @
Mac (this works from on-campus and from
home if you use your MacID)
RefWorks
 Web-based citation management software
 FREE to Mac students
 Registration required
 Create one or several accounts
 Store unlimited number of references
 Can move your RefWorks database into
another database programme (eg. Endnote,
ProCite, Reference Manager, etc.)
You can use RefWorks to manage
your references. If you want to learn
more, there is an online tutorial.
Refworks Demo Using
Compendex
Select Engineering Design
For design research, check
Patent websites and product
Catalogues.
Summary
 Refereed (peer reviewed) articles
 Finding databases
 Searching for articles in a database
 RACER, Refworks and Patents
Questions?
Need Help? Just ask!
 Visit: Research Help Desk in Thode
Library,1st Floor
 email: [email protected]
 Call: ext. 22000
 Chat: http://library.mcmaster.ca/justask/
 Contact Linda Michtics, Engineering Liaison
Librarian : [email protected] or ext.
23882