Research Depot: Step by Step Library Help

Introduction
Finding books usually isn't very hard. You go to IRIS, punch in some keywords, find some books, see if they're checked out or not, and then go hunt them down in the stacks. But finding a journal article is a bit trickier. This tutorial is designed to take you through that process, step by step. This is an interactive tutorial, and, when you're done, you'll be able to go through it all again using your topic to find articles you can use.

Step One: Find an Index
Rutgers has a number of indexes available online, so the first step is to find one that's likely to have articles pertaining to your topic. For the purposes of this tutorial, we're going to look for articles about ozone depletion. To begin, we go to the listing of online indexes, available at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rshortcuts.shtml. You can click on this link to open the page in a new window so you can follow along with each step. Leave the type of resource set to "Indexes/Databases" and then scroll through the list of resources until you see "Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management Index," clicking on it once to select it. Then click "Submit" to open it.

We're lucky because we found an index that's clearly a good start for researching this topic, but if you're not sure what a particular index covers, be sure to check out the library's list of indexes (link opens in this window) for both a listing and a description of each one.

Step Two: Search for a Topic
The "Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management Index" is based on Ovid, which is a common interface for a number of indexes. If you're not sure how to use Ovid, you can click the button that says "Help" in the upper right hand corner. But for now, we're just going to plug in our search terms and see what we get.

Type "ozone depletion" in the keyword blank and then hit "Perform Search." You get a page with the first 10 of several hundred results. That's a LOT to search through, so let's narrow it down a bit. So let's suppose we're interested in the effect of fossil fuels on ozone depletion. Put "fossil fuels" into the key word blank and perform that search and then when you get the results, put "1 and 2" into the blank and perform another search. That tells Ovid to look for the citations that concern BOTH fossil fuels and ozone depletion. You should get a page with around 7 results--MUCH more manageable.

Step Three: Copy Interesting Citations
Now that we have some citations, we can start looking for ones that might help us. Expect to glance through many more articles than you actually use, so go ahead and jot down anything that might be useful at all. You can always scratch it from your list later.

Looking at our search results, "Ecological engineering--an idea whose time has come" seems promising for our particular project, since it could connect to some of the frame material we want to use. So, copy down the citation entirely:

Berryman, A.A. Valenti, M.A. Harris, M.J. Fulton, D.C Ecological engineering--an idea whose time has come. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 1992. vol. 7, no. 8, pp. 268-270

That's a lot to write, but luckily there are some shortcuts you can use here. Ovid can email you the citations you want, you can save them on disk, or you can print them out. Just check off the citation you want (in this case, number 4) then scroll to the bottom of the page. Leave everything in the citation manager as it is (or play around with the different options) and then select email, save, or print preview and follow the instructions. If you have any problems with this process, check out the library's instructions on how to do this.

Step Four: Note the Journal Name
You're going to end up with a lot of information in your citations, but in order to find the actual article, it's crucial to remember the journal name. So, you may find it time saving to keep a separate list of the names of the journals. We'll be using this list soon.

Step Five: Continue the Search
Once you've finished with one index, you should move on to others. The great thing about Ovid is that you can carry your search strategies between different indexes. On the main Ovid screen, find the icon labeled "Change Database" that looks like an upside-down triangle. When you click on this, you'll get the listing of all the Ovid databases. You can click on one of these databases and then you have the option of re-running the search you just did. You can try this out if you'd like, but for now we're going to hunt down the article we're interested in.

Step Six: Check for the Journal in IRIS
This step is crucial, absoultely positively without a doubt crucial. It's also a little confusing, unless you stop to think about it. IRIS is the database that contains every physical item in the library. It doesn't tell you what's in an item; it just tells you if the library owns it. So, you can't find articles on IRIS. That's what you go to the online indexes and databases—becuase they tell you what's inside the journals.

BUT, once you know what's inside a journal, you need to find out if Rutgers has that journal. So, you always first search the indexes and THEN look for the journal in IRIS.

So, now we'll leave Ovid and go to IRIS to see if we can find the journal. Click on this link to load IRIS in our other window.

We'll put the title of the journal into the search term field: "Trends in Ecology & Evolution" (this is where it's handy to have that list of journal names you're looking for). Notice that the last button is "Periodical Title"; that's the one you want to click. The journal we want is the first item listed in the search results. Click on it to find out where the library keeps it and you'll see it's located in the Chang library, which is on Cook Campus. Now all you have to do is go to that library, find the journal, use the citation information, and find the article. If you have some questions about figuring out if the library has the journal, or where the library has it, check out this IRIS FAQ item.

Step Seven: Skim the Article to See if It's Useful
Once you find the article, spend a few minutes skimming through it. Does it address your topic? Do you think you can use it in your research essay? Does it add something new, or just repeat information you have in other articles?

It doesn't make sense to get articles you can't or won't use, so spend a few minutes skimming before you spend the time to read the entire article. You only want to spend that kind of time on the material that will help your project the most.

Step Eight: Xerox, Read, Use, Repeat
That's about it. Once you find an article that will be usefull, copy it, read it, take notes on it, and work it into your essay. Then, go back and research some more.

Your Turn
Start this tutorial over, using terms for your specific topic. Make sure you understand the two-step process of finding a citation in an index and then seeing if Rutgers has the journal in IRIS. If you have any problems or questions you might want to check out the IRIS FAQ.

And, once you start finding articles, or any resource, you want to make sure you make a record of all the information you will need for your citations. The next section will give you some help in making citations in MLA or APA format.

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