Qinling Huang（黄琴玲）

qlhuang@lib.sjtu.edu.cn

Mar. 15, 2018

Literature Search Strategies

for Academic Writing II

Information literacy

“…information literate people are those who havelearned how to learn. They know how to learn becausethey know how knowledge is organized, how to findinformation and how to use information in such a waythat others can learn from them. They are peopleprepared for lifelong learning, because they can alwaysfind the information needed for any task or decision athand."

——American Library Association Presidential Committee

Outline

Review

Literature search case

Avoid plagiarism

• Google Scholar

• Library search tools

• E-databases

• Scopus

• What is plagiarism?

• Examples of plagiarism

• Ways to avoid plagiarism

Review of literature search methods

multi-database

search

single-database

search

Free search engines

Library search tools

Library e-databases

_Abstract_Web of Science, Scopus, EI…

_Full-text_Mechanical engineering: ASME, SAE…

_Electrical & Electronic Engineering: IEEE, ACM…

_OurExplore…

_Google Scholar, Baidu Scholar…

collection of data

organized in a specific

way to be

easily accessed,

managed, and updated.

Exercises

www.lib.sjtu.edu.cn

1. Search literature on the area you are interested

in and related to academic writing (e.g.,

“argumentative writing”, “expository writing”) “in

the title of the article”, then get one full text.

http://scholar.google.com/

http://scholar.google.com.hk/?hl=zh-CN

2. Search literature on “argumentative writing” via

OURExplore.

Exercises

www.lib.sjtu.edu.cn

Search literature on “argumentative writing” published from 2008 until now in the “topic” field in Web of Science core collection, and find out:

• the most cited articles

• publication year distribution

• reviews

• top 5 authors

Scopus

Finding Scopus

Scopus document search

Sort results

Most-cited paper

Full text link 2: SFX Full text link 1

Publication year distribution

Publication year

distribution

Top authors

Top authors

review (articles)

Pay attention to

review (articles)

keyword

keyword

Avoid plagiarism

What is plagiarism?

Definition

Presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with

or without their consent, or incorporating it into your

work without full acknowledgement.

——Plagiarism, University of Oxford

Results

Can be a violation of copyright laws

Can be considered cheating

Getting a failing grade

Even being kicked out of school

Examples of plagiarism I

A student is expected to write a research paper

on a topic in his history class. The student had a

friend who took a similar class five years ago. The

student asks his older friend for a copy of his

paper and then takes the paper and passes it off

as his own, turning it in to the teacher with his

name on it.

http://examples.yourdictionary.com

/examples

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-plagiarism.html

Examples of plagiarism II

A student takes a large block of text from a book

and quotes it in his paper word-for-word. The

student puts a footnote into the paper indicating

where the text came from; but, the student does

not give any indication in the text that he or she is

quoting directly from the paper.

http://examples.yourdictionary.com

/examples

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-plagiarism.html

Examples of plagiarism III

An academic is expected to publish papers but he

doesn't have time to research because of family

obligations. He looks through old professional

journals in another country and he copies a 10-

year-old article from someone else in the field. He

submits the article as his own and hopes that no

one finds the article from which he copied.

http://examples.yourdictionary.com

/examples

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-plagiarism.html

Examples of plagiarism IV

A guy wants to create an internet website to

increase advertisement revenue. Instead of

writing his own articles, he visits twenty other

websites that have articles on the topic in which

he is interested. He copies each of the articles,

changes the titles and the authors' names to his

name and posts the articles on his own website.

http://examples.yourdictionary.com

/examples

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-plagiarism.html

Shouldn’t we use the work of others?

It’s important to situate your writing within the

intellectual debates of your discipline

Academic essays always involve the use and

discussion of material written by others, with due

acknowledgement and proper referencing

Good citation

helps strengthen your argument

helps your reader follow up your references, or check the

validity of your interpretation

6 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Paraphrase

Put the useful information into your own words.

Don’t copy verbatim more than two words in a row from

the text.

If you use more than two words together, you have to use

quotation marks.

Cite

Follow the document formatting guidelines (i.e. APA,

MLA, Chicago, etc.) used by JI

Referencing

Include a reference page at the end of your research paper

Meet JI document formatting guidelines

6 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Quoting

Use the quote exactly the way it appears

Avoid quotes of 40 words or more

Learn to effectively paraphrase most material

Citing Your Own Material

Using material you have used before is called self-plagiarism

Treat the text the same as you would if someone else wrote it

Citing Quotes

Different from citing paraphrased material

Involves the addition of a page number

PPT

The PPT will be

uploaded to:

JI Subject Blog

Welcome your feedback.

Welcome to contact us.

Mechanical engineering subject service team

(Office: B200, Tel.: 34206460*12200):

Xie Gao : xgao@lib.sjtu.edu.cn ,

Zhiling Chen: zlchen@lib.sjtu.edu.cn ,

Yi Wang: ywang@lib.sjtu.edu.cn,

Qinling Huang : qlhuang@lib.sjtu.edu.cn.

2018/3/15

THANK YOU