DOIs, Citation Styles, & Citation Mangers: Gateways to Graduate Students
Start Date
3-22-2018 10:15 AM
End Date
3-22-2018 10:45 AM
Description of Proposal
Graduate students are deeply involved in their research and scholarly topics. They often seek out any techniques to help save them time and let them focus on their scholarship. Citations can be seen as unwanted complexities that get in the way. For that reason, librarians can use presentations, workshops, tutorials, and other information literacy delivery mechanisms focused on citation styles, managers, and/or DOIs as a means to offer assistance to graduate students while also introducing information literacy concepts as well as providing information about databases and library services.
While undergraduates may not need the power and complexity of full citation managers or details about the various incarnations of DOIs and when to use them, graduate students are reading and using dozens of sources and are receptive to learning how to manage their sources, especially for writing a thesis, dissertation, a professional project, journal articles, or any item with an extensive bibliography. Citation managers, like EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero (to name several of the dozens available), can be a huge time-saving tool, but all of them tend to have a steep learning curve.
Positioning the library as the primary source for citation management support and instruction opens the door for many other information literacy topics. Uses of citation managers include literature searching from within the manager, integration with databases and publisher web sites, citation elements (like DOI explanations), variations in citation styles, and issues with scholarly publishing. Troubleshooting issues with citation managers can lead to explanations about organizations as authors, authority lists for authors or journal titles, title variants, data management, and permanence of URLs.
A citation manager can be used at every step of the way from article searching, to reading, analyzing, note taking, organizing, citing, and publishing. Beyond just the mechanics of how to get citation managers to work, such instruction can position librarians to be guides for the whole research and writing process.
This presentation will include audience polling, invite participant input, and have time for questions and answers. (I can also easily expand this from a 30 minute presentation to a 90 minute interactive workshop.)
DOIs, Citation Styles, & Citation Mangers: Gateways to Graduate Students
RM 400
Graduate students are deeply involved in their research and scholarly topics. They often seek out any techniques to help save them time and let them focus on their scholarship. Citations can be seen as unwanted complexities that get in the way. For that reason, librarians can use presentations, workshops, tutorials, and other information literacy delivery mechanisms focused on citation styles, managers, and/or DOIs as a means to offer assistance to graduate students while also introducing information literacy concepts as well as providing information about databases and library services.
While undergraduates may not need the power and complexity of full citation managers or details about the various incarnations of DOIs and when to use them, graduate students are reading and using dozens of sources and are receptive to learning how to manage their sources, especially for writing a thesis, dissertation, a professional project, journal articles, or any item with an extensive bibliography. Citation managers, like EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero (to name several of the dozens available), can be a huge time-saving tool, but all of them tend to have a steep learning curve.
Positioning the library as the primary source for citation management support and instruction opens the door for many other information literacy topics. Uses of citation managers include literature searching from within the manager, integration with databases and publisher web sites, citation elements (like DOI explanations), variations in citation styles, and issues with scholarly publishing. Troubleshooting issues with citation managers can lead to explanations about organizations as authors, authority lists for authors or journal titles, title variants, data management, and permanence of URLs.
A citation manager can be used at every step of the way from article searching, to reading, analyzing, note taking, organizing, citing, and publishing. Beyond just the mechanics of how to get citation managers to work, such instruction can position librarians to be guides for the whole research and writing process.
This presentation will include audience polling, invite participant input, and have time for questions and answers. (I can also easily expand this from a 30 minute presentation to a 90 minute interactive workshop.)
What takeaways will attendees learn from your session?
Managing citations, styles, and formatting is often one of graduate students’ least favorite (and time consuming) aspects of writing theses, dissertations, and other scholarly products. Librarians, in offering to help expedite graduate students’ work by teaching workshops and offering support of citation managers, styles, and DOIs. In addition to helping the graduate students become more efficient in managing their sources, librarians can also introduce other information literacy concepts as well as providing information about databases and library services.
Citation managers, like EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero (to name several of the dozens available), can be a huge time-saving tool, but all of them tend to have a steep learning curve. Positioning the library as the primary source for citation management support and instruction opens the door for many other information literacy topics. Uses of citation managers include literature searching from within the manager, integration with databases and publisher web sites, citation elements including DOI explanations, variations in citation styles, and issues with scholarly publishing. Troubleshooting issues with citation managers can lead to explanations about organizations as authors, authority lists for authors or journal titles, title variants, data management, and permanence of URLs.
Since citation managers can be used for searching, reading, analyzing, note taking, organizing, citing, and publishing, such instruction can position librarians to be guides for the whole research and writing process. Come with your questions and stories to share as well.