Literature researching
Managing References
Over the course of any research project you are likely to access several hundred references. Managing this vast database will involve some of the rather more mundane aspects of research, namely developing abilities to search for pertinent references, filing materials for easy access and maintaining full records of the references. You cannot be expected to immediately recall every article, so a system of cross-referencing back to the source is critical from the very outset as it will undoubtedly be necessary to refer back to many articles and sources a number of times during the course of the research project.
Do not ignore a key resource though - the university subject librarian – who will invariably provide a good overview of existing sources and perhaps some guidance about filing and classifying materials.
In maintaining your literature database it is highly recommended that you employ one of the more common bibliographic software packages such as EndNote , Procite , Biblioscape , Bookends (for Mac) , ReferenceManager , Bookwhere or LibraryMaster . Such database packages are specifically designed for the management of academic literature references and many incorporate quite extensive search facilities linking to the major online reference database such as Proquest, Business Source Premier, Science Direct, Ebsco and Emerald. It is not the purpose of this site to provide you with detailed instruction in the use of any of these packages. However, whatever system is chosen, it is important to be aware of the need to maintain personal ‘library copies’ of materials for future use. Again, it is increasingly feasible to do this electronically using pdf (portable document format) format files. Most of the bibliographic databases mentioned above allow you to not only develop a comprehensive record entry of all source literature materials, but will also allow you to link directly to stored electronic source files for ease of retrieval.
Despite the widespread domination of the personal computer and networked resources, many students still prefer to have paper or ‘hard’ copies of their materials for ease of reading and review. Again, it is useful to be able to access these readily and it is recommended that a separate record identifying number is used for each item – such as the one allocated by your bibliographic system.
Managing and maintaining the bibliography will be an important part of the literature review process throughout the research program and it is worth investing time early on to chose an appropriate package, learn how it is used and ensure data and records are kept ‘clean’.
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