Presentation used during the information skills training sessions held on 24/09/2014 and 01/10/2014 for M7 and M9 y3 students. We covered the literature search and how to cite and reference in the Harvard style.

1. Information
Skills Training
by Aurelie Gandour

2. Literature review
A literature review aims to
review the critical points of
current knowledge on a
particular topic.
The goal is to bring the
reader up to date with
current literature on a topic
and to form the basis for
future research that may
be needed in the area.
It entails:
• Finding a relevant topic
• Doing a literature search
• Writing up the actual review while
citing accurately the documents
found during the literature search
• In your findings, concluding on
the research possibilities on the
subject.

3. How to do the WORST literature search?
• Limiting oneself to particular timespan
• Problems with long titles
• Getting spelling wrong
• Not looking up other references in an important paper
• Not looking up the original ideas
• Not quoting directly from the source
• Not having the right year
• Only Wikipedia
• Quoting other people’s referencing, not finding the source
• Looking in only one place
• Too narrow a search

4. Find Search
Words

5. Sources
• Humans: your tutor, your personal librarian, your
colleagues, other students…
• Your reading list: check the references of the papers
in your reading list.
• The library's catalogue: to find books, e-books, dvds,
theses, pamphlets...
• Bibliographic databases
• Websites: be careful and check if they’re reliable!
• Blogs, tweets, etc.

6. What is a bibliographic database?
• A list of sources of information like:
• Journals Articles
Books...
• These information sources are shown as records.
• Each record contains everything you need to know about the
information source (author, title, publication name, date,
indexing subject terms...).
• Sometimes you only have the record. Sometimes you can
directly access the article in Full Text.
 PsycINFO

7. What to do if we don't have access
to the full-text?
• For articles, check in the One-Stop-Shop for journals if there isn't
another way to access this journal (online or in print);
• Look for it on Google to check if the author hasn't put a pdf of it
somewhere;
• Send an e-mail to the author to ask if s/he can provide you with a
copy;
• Ask for an inter-library loan through the library's catalogue (cost: £6);
• Go to the British Library, you should be able to consult it there
(photocopies: £0.25 a page).

8. S
Using Booleans
A
Author A and Subject S
Author A or Subject S
Author A but Subject S
A
A
S
S

9. Found an interesting paper?
First, save the reference by writing it down in Harvard Style and keep a copy of
the full-text on your computer if possible.
Then, using the
Other papers by the
snowball technique,
SAME AUTHOR
try and find other good
papers related to this one.
This is
a good
paper
Other papers in the
SAME JOURNAL
Other documents
that CITE this paper
References CITED
BY this paper

10. Doing a thorough literature search using
bibliographic databases
Pick a database
Pick a field
Try this all again with
another database
Try again all of your
keywords in another
field
Input 1 or 2 keywords
Limit your search
The Iterative Process of
the literature search
Try other keywords
Try limiting your search
another way

11. Break!
We're starting again in 5 minutes...

12. CITING in-text
(Author, YEAR) (YEAR)
If the author’s name would not
naturally be included in the
sentence, add the author’s name
and year of publication in brackets.
If the author’s name occurs
naturally in the sentence, the year
of publication only should follow in
brackets.
Recent research in social work
(Smith, 2003) has shown that...
Smith and Jones (2003) found
that...

13. To this basic citation, you can add...
Page numbers
Other authors' names
• In a recent study Ndlov
(1996, p. 26) argued
that…
• A recent study (Ndlov,
1996, pp. 26-30) found
that…
You can add directly the names of a total of
three authors:
• In a recent study (Smith and Jones,
2003)…
• In a recent study (Smith, Jones and Hill,
2003)…
For more than three authors, you have to
write "et al.":
• In a recent study (Smith et al., 2003)…

14. YEAR troubleshooting
If you don't know the year of publication, you can use the
mention no date instead.
 The earliest report (Harvey, no date, p. 231) showed that…
 Harvey, P. (no date) Survey report. London: Sage.
If you need to cite two (or more) publications by an author published in the
same year, distinguish them by allocating lower case letters in alphabetical
order after the publication date.
In text: In his study of the work of Rubens, Miller (2006a, p. 18) emphasised the
painter’s mastery of drama in his larger compositions. However, his final
analysis (Miller, 2006b, pp. 143-152) argued that…
Miller, S. (2006a) The Flemish masters. London: Phaidon Press
Miller, S. (2006b) Rubens and his art. London: Killington Press
Reference List:

15. Citing Exercise
• In her first book, Rowling (1997) built the premises of her well-known series
of children's books.
• ... non-wizard people are called "muggles" (Rowling, 1997).
• One of them treats of imaginary animals (Rowling, 2001a). Another treats of
the history of the famous wizard sport, Quidditch (Rowling, 2001b).
• The last chapter of the fourth book is called "The Beginning" (Rowling,
2000, pp. 621-636).
• For example, Rowling (2000, p.621) depicts that...
• ... a collection of unofficial fan predictions (Gordon et al., 2006) before the
publication of Book 7.

16. Referencing a book
Name, I. (YEAR) Title of the book. Town: Publisher.
Schetina, E. (2002) Internet site security. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
You have to write all of
the authors' names
You can add a book
series and number
If this not a first edition,
add the edition number
Smith, J., Jones, W.,
March, M. and Chapman,
B. (2004) Harvard
citations in easy stages.
London: Academic Press.
McIlroy, D. (2003)
Studying at university:
how to be a
successful student.
London: Sage (Sage
Essential Study
Skills, 23).
Christopher, M. (1998)
Logistics and supply chain
management. 2nd edn.
London: Prentice Hall.

17. AUTHOR troubleshooting
If the book has an editor, use her name + (ed.) or (eds) for plural instead
of the author.
Andresen, L. (ed.) (1994) Strategies for assessing students. Birmingham: SCED.
If your document doesn't have an author, use the title instead.
The silence of the lambs (2001) Directed by Jonathan Demme [DVD]. London:
MGM Home Entertainment.
> The movie (The silence of the lambs, 2001) depicted...
If a webpage doesn't have an author nor a title, use its URL instead.
http://www.newmedia.com/compression.html (2009) (Accessed: 16 July 2010).
> Compression may be required (http://www.newmedia.com/compression.html,
2009).

18. Referencing a Book Chapter
Name, I. (YEAR) ‘Title of the chapter’, in NameEditor,
I. (ed.) Title of the book. Town: Publisher, pp. xx-xx.
Jones, D. (2004) ‘Understanding Harvard referencing’, in Brown, P.
(ed.) Writing references in extremely easy stages. London: Academic
Press, pp. 21-25.
Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2010) 'How should I set out citations and
quotqtions in my text?', in Cite them right: the essential referencing guide. 8th
edn. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 4-8.

19. Referencing an article
Name, I. (YEAR) ‘Title of the paper’, Name of the
Journal, Volume(Issue), pp. xx-xx.
Haddock, M. (1994) ‘Are you thinking of writing a bibliography?’,
College and Research Libraries News, 55(8), pp. 471-474.

20. Referencing electronic resources
Online books and articles
At the end of the reference add: ... [Online] Available at: <URL> (Accessed: <date>).
or ... [Online] doi: <doi> (Accessed: <date>).
Rose, M.R. (2007) ‘Adaptation’ in Levin, S.A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of biodiversity, pp. 17-23
[Online] Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/9780122268656
(Accessed: 5 March 2010).
Reid, K. (2011) ‘Changes to educational policy and management in Wales: facing the “cuts”
and new strategic challenges’, Educational Review, 63(4), pp. 439-453. [Online] doi: 10.1080/
00131991.2011.603825 (Accessed: 7 January 2012).
Web pages Author (YEAR) Title of the page. Available at: <URL> (Accessed: date).
NHS Direct (2010) Colds and flu. Available at: https://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/en/
CheckSymptoms/SATs/coldandflu (Accessed: 10 August 2010).

21. Referencing Jigsaw
... an exercise

22. Writing references, exercise
• Lewis, C. S. (1950) The lion, the witch and the wardrobe. London:
Geoffrey Bles.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937) 'An unexpected party' in The hobbit. Crows
Nest: George Allen & Unwin.
• Louwerse, M. M. and Benesh, N. (2012) 'Representing spatail
structure through maps and language: Lord of the Rings encodes the
spatial structure of Middle Earth', Cognitive Science, 36(8), pp. 1556-
1569.
• Gaiman, N. (2014) Why I am smiling in this picture. [online] Available
at: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2014/05/why-i-am-smiling-in-this-picture.
html (Accessed on 5 August 2014).

23. Good luck with your
literature search!
agandour@tavi-port.nhs.uk @iSkillsTavi http://tavi-iskills.blogspot.co.uk