1.6 Taking Advantage of Reference Management Tools - Thomas Skov Jensen

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From the course by University of Copenhagen

Academic Information Seeking

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University of Copenhagen

Academic Information Seeking

163 ratings

This course will introduce you to the basic elements of academic information seeking - we will explore the search process from defining a strategy to evaluating and documenting your search results. Attending the course will make you a proficient information seeker. You will learn how to carry out comprehensive literature searches based on your own research assignment. You will be guided through the various information seeking steps from selecting relevant search strategies and techniques to evaluating your search results, documenting your search process and citing your sources. Attending the course will enable you to: • Identify your information need • Evaluate databases and other information resources • Set up search strategies and use various search techniques • Formulate search strings based on your own research assignment • Identify relevant material types • Undertake critical evaluation of your sources • Search more efficiently on the internet • Avoid plagiarism • Cite correctly • Work with reference management • Document your search process The course is intended for undergraduate students but the lessons will be useful to anyone who is interested in becoming better at finding scientific information. There are no formal requirements for the course. The series consists of 21 lectures that are organized into three modules. The lectures include small assignments and quizzes (to check comprehension). The lectures will each touch upon a topic that is essential to the information seeking process. To get the most out of the lecture series, we recommend that you access the lectures while you are working on an academic paper. We also recommend that you watch the lectures in the order in which we have structured them. We recommend that you create and fill out a log book while attending the lectures. We have created a log book template that you can use during the course. The lecture series has been developed in collaboration between information specialists at University of Copenhagen and Technical University of Denmark

From the lesson

Preparing your search process

In Module 1, we focus on preparation. We explain how to use a log book to document your searches, provide ideas for generating search terms, introduce you to various types of literature, material and information resources, and to reference management.

1.6 Taking Advantage of Reference Management Tools - Thomas Skov Jensen5:14

Meet the Instructors

Birgitte Munk
Information Specialist
Copenhagen University Library
Thomas Skov Jensen
Information Consultant
Technical University of Denmark

Hi my name is Thomas Skov Jensen and I work as an information consultant at the university

library of the Technical University of Denmark In this lesson, I will look at references

and I will talk about reference management and explain how creating a good workflow with

regard to references will help you during your writing process.

But why should you concern yourself with reference management in the first place?

First of all, it will improve the quality of your academic papers.

Secondly, it will make you work more efficiently and

Thirdly, it will make it easy for you to manage your references.

Sound academic work is characterized by consistent use of references. But what is a reference?

Well, in this context, a reference means the textual reference to another work of literature

or a piece of information - for example when you refer to or quote from a book, an article,

or a website in your paper. The format and actual location of the references may differ

but the basic principles are the same. You must be able to see exactly which part

of the text is being cited and all the references in the text must appear in

a bibliography at the end of your paper. You use references to enable the reader to

distinguish between your results and conclusions and the results and conclusions that appear

in the literature you have studied and used in your paper.

This is a balancing act. If a substantial part of your paper consists of quotes from

other people’s work, your paper will lack originality. If you neglect to add references,

however, your work may appear subjective and unscientific.

In any case, you should keep in mind that the references you use in your paper have

two purposes: First of all, they provide documentation for

the part of your text that draws upon other people’s work so that the reader can identify

which parts of the paper are the result of your intellectual efforts and which parts

have been written by others. Secondly, the references that make up the

bibliography must enable the reader to identify the documents in question. In other words,

it is not enough simply to provide an author’s name and a title – you must state exactly

where and when the document was published. Which of these metadata that is necessary

for the precise identification of the document in question will depend on what document type

you are referring to - whether it is an article, a book, a patent, a website or something else.

In your paper, you must demonstrate that you master the art of citing and creating bibliographies.

Luckily, there are tools that can help you – so let’s turn our attention to the Reference

Management Tools. When you begin to look for information and

literature for your project, it is absolutely essential that your workflow is structured

and consistent. In addition to the literature you find yourself, your teacher or supervisor

may present you with additional sources and suggestions for particular documents that

may be central to your research. Keeping track of all the different documents you find when

you begin searching in databases and online can be difficult.

The best advice in terms of avoiding a veritable chaos at this stage is to use a reference

management tool – preferably before you do your first searches or at least very early

on in your research process. There are several advantages of using a reference

management tool. First of all, it will make your information

seeking structured and efficient. Secondly, it will help you keep track of all

the references you use in your paper. Consider the reference management tool as your own

private library that you can expand and develop as your work progresses.

Thirdly, it will give your references, quotations and bibliography a consistent and professional

look Reference management tools come in many shapes

and sizes. Some of the more famous ones include EndNote, RefWorks, Zotero and Mendeley

All of the basic reference management functionalities that we touched upon just now will be available

to you through these tools. In other words, it is not important which

tool you decide to use when you begin collecting references – the most important thing is

that you start using a reference management tool.

And remember that you will benefit from the collection in your reference management tool

if you need to work on a similar research field at some point in the future.

In this course, we will introduce you to Mendeley and therefore we recommend that you use this

particular reference management tool during this course.

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