Hello my name is Lisa. In this video we are going to be looking at how to manage your
references and the tool we are going to be using is called RefWorks.
When you are searching on a topic and trying to find information
you will find that you'll be getting your sources from lots of different places. So that could be
Discover, could be an individual database. You might also be using Google
Scholar. The more places you search and the more information you have
the harder it is to keep organised. You need to have some sort of system
to keep track of what you are using, what you've read and what you'll need to reference
The Library subscribes to a reference management tool callled RefWorks
It can help you save and organise your references. It will format your reference
list for you and also your in text citations. There are lots of other
things it can do as well. But in this video we are going to be focusing on these main processes
Ultimately RefWorks can save you time.
You can access RefWorks from the RefWorks box on the Library homepage
just click on Connect to RefWorks. Use the
log in from my institution drop down start
to type in Glasgow Caledonian University and pick it off the list.
You may be prompted at this point to put in your GCU
username and password and this will let you into your RefWorks
account. If this is your first time accessing
RefWorks you will be prompted to create an account. Just follow the prompts
on the screen. When registering for RefWorks make sure you use your GCU
student or staff email.
Before you use your RefWorks account we would recommend that you change your view from
Normal, which is the default, to Citation
View. This allows you to see your references in your chosen
referencing style.The default is the current GCU Harvard
style. If you are using a different referencing style, just click on the cog wheel
and you can search for the style you require.
There are different ways of getting your references into RefWorks. The beauty
of RefWorks is that it is embedded in most of the places
you are going to be searching. So it's in Discover, it's in Google Scholar
It is in a lot of the databases. So that means that as you are searching
and researching your topic you can be putting things into your RefWorks account
as you go along. This is called importing and I'm going
to do a couple of examples. First of all from Discover.
Make sure you sign in
to Discover
We need to sign in so that we've got access to our favourites, so that's the drawing pin icon
and we can use this to send references from
Discover into RefWorks.
For an individual item. Say there is just one thing here that I want to send
to RefWorks. Just look for the three dots
Choose RefWorks
and there is my reference in my RefWorks account.
I've still got some more work to do on that, but first of all let me show how you get
more than one item, cause that would be more efficient thing to do. If you do a search and you
find several things that you might want to use or read
The way that you do that in Discover is to use the pin icon.
So what you are doing is adding those to your favourites
and you can favourite as many items as
you need and then go up to my favourites next to my
name
and then tick those items
that I've pinned just then and again
three dots, then RefWorks. This time it's going to take
all three of those items across for me.
The next example is importing from a database and I've chosen
ProQuest Central
RefWorks is embedded in most databases so what you are looking for is usually an option to
export or an option to put your
references into a folder and then to export the folder.
So I'm going to do an advanced search so that I've got more control over my search
Rather than an anywhere search I'm just going to search in the title, the abstract and the subject heading.
I'll just filter to journals
and just the last five years
It is very easy to send any of these to RefWorks
So I can send up to one hundred at a time if I wanted to use all of them.
Three dots
RefWorks
Or I can select individual
items
Just keep the default settings
RefWorks does a really good job of
pulling through the details you need in order to have a complete reference however
there is always a little bit of editing and checking that you need to do. It is very important
that you check your references. It is your responsiblity to ensure
that they are accurate and complete. RefWorks helps you with this by highlighting
any missing details. So that is what these coloured fields are here.
These are the three references that I pulled through from ProQuest Central and you can see
that often they are actually looking for the same details.
There are two particular things to point out. Whenever RefWorks is looking for Extra data
that is always the word online. In our reference style we
always have anything electronic has the word online in square brackets
so all you have to do is click on the field and it opens up the form and you just type in
online
and you can see that it has put the square brackets in for you. And you would do the
same for each of these. So extra data there and there as well.
So I've put in the word online for the other ones
and Date retrieved is the other thing that you will always have to put in manually
RefWorks can't do it for you and date retrieved is today's date.
And you can put the date in in any format
just make sure that you are consistent
I've put the date in for the others and you can see that RefWorks
puts in the square brackets and the word viewed.
RefWorks is looking for an issue number. Not all journals use issue numbers
so what I will need to do is go back to the database where I got that
article and check to see if there is in fact an issue number.
That's one of the reasons why we suggest that you do
your checking as you bring things into RefWorks so that if you do
have to look for a missing details like an issue number you just have to go back one window.
Rather than having to find the thing again.
I've checked and there is an issue number so I'm just going to add that in
And the final field here is a DOI
For anything that is electronic you need to provide a link. So either a DOI
which is a permament link, so this link down here is a DOI
a lot of journals use DOIs. They are stable, unchangable links
However, RefWorks has pulled through a URL
and that's sufficient, so I don't need to worry about that
While I can't delete that field, that colour highlight
it won't appear in my final list , so I can just ignore it.
So that now those references are complete the next thing I need to do is put them
in a folder. So I just need to
tick them, then assign folder. I don't have any folders yet, so
I'm just going to create one
and now you can see under folders I have
a folder called Dissertation with three items.
One of the most impressive things about RefWorks is it's ability to create a bibliography
or reference list for you at the click of a button. I'll just show you how easy
that is. So if I go to the folder where my references are that I want
to use in my bibliography. All I have to do is click
Create Bibliography. Create bibliography.
and there's my reference list. You will notice
that it's in alphabetical order and all I have to do
is copy that and then paste into my word document.
RefWorks can also help you with in text citations and to do that
you use the bibliography menu
but this time choose Quick Cite
And here are the three references I've got in that folder and if I wanted to
generate an in text citation I just tick it and then I can just
copy and paste that into my work.
For more information on RefWorks including advanced features have a look at our RefWorks page
which is available from the Library homepage. If you need any further assistance
please contact your subject librarian.