Library Assignment 2 - October 2nd
Before coming to class on Wednesday, October 2nd, please do the following:
- Register for a RefWorks account,
- Review the information below, moving through the boxes in numerical order, and
- Download the Library Assignment #2 - it will be posted in Canvas. If you want a hard copy, print it before you come to the computer lab.
If you have any difficulties registering, please contact me for help. During class, I will give a short talk, and then you will have the rest of the time to work on your assignment.
Submit the Word file in Canvas, and don't forget to put your name and course code on the assignment!
The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to give correct attribution to authors of scholarly communications and create a bibliography of references on your topic using the reference manager, RefWorks. You will learn to collect and save references and produce bibliographies in ACS numeric superscript citation style. The link to the online ACS Style Quick Guide is at the bottom of this box, in case you need to refer to it.
NOTE: There are three changes you need to make to your RefWorks bibliography to make if fully inline with the newest edition of the ACS style guide. Make these necessary changes before you submit the bibliography.
- Make sure that each reference uses the ACS abbreviation for the journal. You can check that at CASSI (CAS Source Index Search Tool). Paste the journal title or abbreviation from each reference into the search and make sure it's correct. If there are no search results, then leave the title as it is. If there is more than one result, select the abbreviation closest to the title you have.
- Make sure the pages numbers are inclusive. They should be like this: 426-438. There should not be only one number (426), or abbreviated numbers (426-38). The only exceptions are for some online-only journals, which may use a single document number (such as 100045g) in place of page numbers. In such cases, just use the document number instead of the page numbers.
- Some references are in the database before the article is published and are called "ahead of print" or "preprint." Change these references to follow the format, Journal Article Early Publication (Article ASAP), in the ACS Style Quick Guide.
1. Information and Plagiarism
When scholars write articles and books, they create information for their academic community. Articles and books have value because of the research and writing scholars put into them and the impact they have on a field. In recognition of that value, it is considered an ethical practice in academia to provide citations and full references to scholarly works when we paraphrase or directly quote them in our own writing. The act of using someone else's ideas without giving them credit is called plagiarism and is a violation of the code of student conduct at UNT. To learn more, watch the short video, Academic Plagiarism and How to Avoid It, produced by the University of Canterbury Libraries. Also visit the library's Plagiarism guide for more tips on avoiding plagiarism.
In this library assignment, you'll learn how to use the tool, RefWorks, to help you give correct attribution to scholars when you use their work. RefWorks can create bibliographies with full references in the citation style your professor requires. You can also use RefWorks in conjunction with a Microsoft Word & Google Docs add-in to create in-text citations and bibliographies.
2. Create Your RefWorks Account
Watch the following video to learn how to create a RefWorks account or visit the RefWorks guide for account creation instructions, tutorials, and more information about this reference manager. New users contact AskUs@unt.edu requesting the access code which is required for creation of a RefWorks account.
3. Learn RefWorks in under 30 Minutes
4. Adding References by Direct Export
Directly exporting references to your RefWorks account works with most databases, but it does not work for ACS Publications (includes journals) or SciFinder-n. See Box 5: Adding References Using Indirect Export, for directions on gathering references from those databases.
Below are other databases containing chemistry journal articles that you may want to explore. They all will directly export references to your RefWorks account.
- Engineering SourceEngineering Source offers cover-to-cover indexing for over 3,000 publications, including journals, monographs, magazines and trade publications, all directly dealing with engineering-related issues. Energy-focused monographs, books, conference papers and proceedings are also included.
- Environment completeThis resources offers patrons full-text access to over 1,300 journals and monographs in areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, and related areas of study, as well regular access to more than 2,500 domestic and international journals.
- Google ScholarClick on the quotations marks icon under a reference to find the RefWorks export option. Use the Settings/Library Links to make links visible to full text articles at UNT Libraries.
5. Adding References Using Indirect Export
SciFinder-n, ACS Publications, and Web of Science are among the handful of databases that do not export references directly to RefWorks. You have to take the intermediate step of creating a text document to import into RefWorks in these cases. The steps below show you how to accomplish this using SciFinder-n.
1. Do a search in SciFinder-n and select the references you would like to export to RefWorks.
2. Select the Download button at the top right of the results screen.
3. Select Citation (.ris) from the File Type dropdown menu.
4. Download the RIS file to your computer.
5. In your RefWorks account, select the + icon and then select Import References.
6. On the next screen, drag the RIS file from Downloads to the grey bar in RefWorks and drop it.
7. RefWorks should recognize the RIS format and ask you to select the exporting database. Scifinder-n is not an option, so select RIS Format instead. Then click the Import button at the bottom right.
8. Finally, your references should appear in the Last Imported folder.
6. Creating a Bibliography in RefWorks
Watch this video starting at minute 3:22 to learn how to create your bibliography. Remember to select the ACS numeric superscript citation style!
7. Other Reference Managers
There are several good reference managers that can help you organize your research, in addition to RefWorks. EndNote is one that is available to you through the Chemistry Computer Lab. Free applications that are very similar to RefWorks are Zotero and Mendeley. Visit the Reference Managers library guide to learn more about all of these applications.