Research Skills; Find Articles for Assignments & Dissertations

Looking at the above list, there are similarities between the needs of all these students. Let's talk about the first group of students, the ones who need a very specific article that they don't have with their module package and that is part of a specific assignment. Why has the tutor done this and not provided all the articles that you need with your module materials? Is this some kind of test? The obvious answer is 'yes'. However, the less obvious realization is that the tutor wants you to begin using the resources available through U of Leicester Library as part of your educational experience at U of Leicester.

Today, I'd like to go a little deeper. I've received emails on my email address at U of Leicester from students who need:

1. A specific article for their module assignment and can't find them
   
2. To get more information on a given subject to help them while doing their assignments
3. To do 'wide reading' before booking an appointment with a dissertation tutor to discuss their dissertation topic

Looking at the above list, there are similarities between the needs of all these students. Let's talk about the first group of students, the ones who need a very specific article that they don't have with their module package and that is part of a specific assignment. Why has the tutor done this and not provided all the articles that you need with your module materials? Is this some kind of test? The obvious answer is 'yes'. However, the less obvious realization is that the tutor wants you to begin using the resources available through U of Leicester Library as part of your educational experience at U of Leicester.


A quick perusal of the Internet reveals why this is the case.Wikipedia, a common source of material, is not vetted by experts in their field and is often inaccurate. Newspapers, which are now often available online, do not usually have the kind of critical readings that you need for good scholarly work. Please note - that there may be exceptions to this rule in The Sunday Times, The New York Sunday Times, The Guardian or The Washington Post. This comment, of course, has implications for group 3 above, the students doing 'wide readings' on their subject of choice. Obviously, you won't want to present a dissertation project with a bibliography that consists of newspaper articles that are not scholarly. If you are doing this, you need to go back to the drawing board and build a better bibliography.

However, getting back to the student who is searching for an article, what do they do? They can go onto Google Scholar to look for their article. This is a good choice to begin. Let's say, for argument's sake, that you are asked to find the article: "Re-Eroticizing the organization: An Exegesis and Critique" from the journal "Gender, Work and Organization" by Joanna Brewis & Christopher Grey, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1994.

You will write a critical summary of this article. This will include an examination of the main thesis or argument in Brewis & Grey's article, a summary of their arguments and an examination of their use of evidence for their arguments and findings, an examination of their conclusion and how it is linked to the main thesis and finally an examination of the bibliography and what other research you might use should you care to conduct further research.

Google Scholar at:
http://scholar.google.com/

will enable you to find Joanna Brewis's publications. I would suggest that the most direct route to finding this article is to use the 'Advanced Search' option, and enter the author's name and the first part of the title. You will then be offered several publications by Brewis and Grey. When you pick the appropriate article, you will automatically go a page for publications from Wiley-Interscience. They publish "Gender, Work and Organization". They will take you here:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119282867/abstract

They will show you sample articles, if you wish to examine them, and a short abstract of the article. If you wish to purchase the article, you can choose to do so at this point. Indeed, given limited time and resources you may do this at this point but you should be aware of another other option.

Let's go to U of Leicester library after having examined option 1: buy the article from Wiley-Interscience. If you go to the Leicester Library at:
http://www.le.ac.uk/library/

At the top of the page, a gray bank includes a link to E-link. Clicking on this takes you here:
http://resolver1.sirsi.co.uk/

When you enter, the title "Gender, Work and Organizations", you then are given several options. Using 'Brewis, Joanna' and making sure you enter 'author' to limit your search to only those publications with Joanna Brewis as the author, you will be given three options. Only the first under 'Blackwell', indicates that you can find articles from as far back as 1994. When you try to get this article, you find that you are given only the abstract even when you click on the PDF file. If we look down the list of other publications in "Gender, Work and Organizations" under Joanna Brewis's name, you will also find the journal article "Foucault, Politics and Organizations: (Re)-Constructing Sexual Harassment, 2001, Volume 8: Issue 1. When you click on PDF, you can get a complete copy of this other article free of charge (you still need your Athens name & password). It is likely that the earlier copies are simply not available online at this time. You will need another option.

Unfortunately, the article we want will need to be interlibrary loaned. Go to:
http://www.le.ac.uk/li/services/interlibrary.html
Under the policies regarding interlibrary loans, you will find that a distance learner at U of Leicester can obtain 15 interlibrary loans free-of-charge. This clearly is what you would have to do if you wanted this article. In some cases, which we will discuss in next week's blog on Research Skills: Finding Articles for Assignments and Dissertations, Pt. 2, you might find a good source of articles one of the databases online at U of Leicester. We will discuss how to use these databases in more length in this posting.

In the meantime, I'd like to leave you with several ideas:

1. Spend time getting to know how to use E-link through the University of Leicester.
2. Take the time to interlibrary loan articles if you need to do so.
3. Make sure you know your Athens ID & password.
   
4. Use Google scholar when necessary but do not make it your only resource.
5. Find out what University of Leicester has available free before buying articles online.

Finally, I would like all those working on assignments or gathering material for a dissertation to use the descriptors or subjects to help locate more articles/books on similar topics. The bibliography will also helpful here. I will talk about this in next week's blog posting.

KB