AUR Library Information Wiki - Recently Updated Pages

Plagiarism Resources

j.weinheimer — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:15:02 CST

Free resources that check documents against materials on the Web.

Doc Cop
PlagiarismDetect.com

Online Guide for Faculty

Plagiarism Detection and Prevention: An Instructor Guide (from PennState)

Collection of links about Plagiarism.

Assessment in Higher Education

Books (Online)

Roig, Miguel. Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. Rockwell, MD, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009.

Eisner, Caroline. Originality, Imitation, And Plagiarism: Teaching Writing In the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. See especially: the last section: Plagiarism, p. 159+.

Plagiarism and Copyright

j.weinheimer — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:33:23 CST

Back to: Citations, Plagiarism & Copyright

Plagiarism

Plagiarism has been very a popular topic in the news lately. Many people have been accused of committing plagiarism, reporters from the New York Times, to Harvard professors, to members of the British government, to famous writers and movie producers such as James Cameron. Students get severely punished or even expelled for plagiarism.

Obviously, plagiarism is a serious matter. But what is plagiarism anyway, and how can people avoid charges of plagiarism?

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is using the ideas and words of others
without clearly acknowledging their source.

For example, using:

another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings—any pieces of information—that are not common knowledge (see below);
quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words;

paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.

Let's look at a specific case.

From: Friedman, Jerome. "Their Name Was God: Religious Charlatans in the Seventeenth-Century English Popular Press." Journal of Popular Culture 25.1 (Summer 1991): 55

One of the earliest periods providing abundant information about charlatans are the two chaotic decades of the English Revolution. From 1640 to 1660 a relatively uncensored press in London published for the mass market of newly literate readers shocking accounts of religious entrepreneurialism. These publications were chapbooks, or penny-book pamphlets, published by the thousands and distributed all over England. Along with ballads and almanacs, these publications appealed to the broad mass of English commoners who in later ages would read the Reader's Digest, The New York Post, and the New York Daily News, and even the National Enquirer.

One of the earliest periods that provides a great deal of information about swindlers are the twenty years of the English Revolution. These years saw a relatively uncensored press in London published for the new readers who could now read shocking accounts of a religious business. These publications were chapbooks that were published and sold all over England. Along with popular songs, these publications were read by many English common people who would later read the Reader's Digest, The New York Post, and the New York Daily News, and even the National Enquirer.

Plagiarism?
Is this plagiarized?

The earliest time we have records that discuss swindlers and charlatans comes from the troubled period from 1640 to 1660 in England. Compared to the earlier years, the media in London was mostly free to print what they wished, and they decided to provide their fledgling readership with scandalous stories of religious frauds. These stories appeared in the popular form of the day, chapbooks. These were printed by the thousands and sent all over England. The common people enjoyed these publications, alongside their ballads and other helpful books. These people are the same as those who would later read the Reader's Digest, and the National Enquirer.

Plagiarism?
Is this plagiarized?

ANSWER

Of course they are! The main ideas were taken, in some cases even copying the actual words, without a citation.

How do I avoid plagiarism?

By using CITATIONS.

With the citation, this is not plagiarism, but a waste of time. You might as well quote.

This is a paraphrase. This shows at least some understanding of the original source.

To avoid Plagiarism:
accurately relay the information in the original:
either use the original words (quotation), or
your own words (paraphrase)
AND
always let the reader know the source of your information

How do I let the reader know the
source of my information?
By using CITATIONS.

OK. I get the point.
So, what do citations do?

they give credit to the author or creator and
they enable a reader to locate the source you cited

How do I make citations?

Use quotation marks (“”) for quotations (words copied from the original)
Do not use quotation marks for paraphrases (restating the idea in your own words), although you can use quotations and paraphrases together. To continue our example:

The earliest time we have records that discuss swindlers and charlatans comes from the troubled period from 1640 to 1660 in England. Compared to the earlier years, the media in London was mostly free to print what they wished, and they decided to provide for their "newly literate readers shocking accounts of religious entrepreneurialism." These stories appeared in the popular form of the day, chapbooks. These were printed by the thousands and sent all over England. "Along with ballads and almanacs, these publications appealed to the broad mass of English commoners who in later ages would read the Reader's Digest, The New York Post, and the New York Daily News, and even the National Enquirer."(Friedman 55)

In both cases, cite your source using the method your instructor wants, e.g. Modern Language Association, American Psychological Association, Chicago Manual of Style, Turabian, and so on.
Citing web sources is different. Even if you are using the electronic version of a printed journal, you must cite the electronic version. Sometimes there are differences between the two versions. Always check on how to cite an electronic version of an item.

What is Common Knowledge?
Common knowledge are the parts of a paper where we do not have to use citations.

facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be known by a lot of people

e.g.

Abraham Lincoln gained the Republican nomination for US President in 1860
or
Few people in the poorest parts of the world have ready access to good medical supplies.

What is not Common Knowledge?

Interpretations

Few people in the poorest parts of the world have ready access to good medical supplies, but it is due entirely to their own internal political conflicts.

Facts that are not generally known

King Louis IX of France banned the game of chess in 1254.

What About Internet Term Paper Mills?

If you turn in a paper from a paper mill, it is definitely a case ofplagiarism and you will be punished.

For information on AUR policies concerning plagiarism,
see the Student Handbook.

See the policies

It’s Never been Easier to Plagiarize

Cut and paste is a cinch with just a change of a few words

It’s Never been Easier to Catch Plagiarists

there are all kinds of new tools coming out constantly,
some of them very powerful

Want more information? See:

Plagiarism Tutorial at Duke University (with some local guidelines as well)
How to Avoid Plagiarism (a video from Rutger's University)

Continue with: Intellectual Property and Copyright

Faculty Area

j.weinheimer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:03:50 CST

There are a few pages in this site devoted especially to the faculty.

Help in Creating Classes (OpenCourseWare, Free online classes)
Textbook Ordering Procedure

Deadlines
Electronic Textbooks
Used Textbooks
Textbook Orders for Spring 2009 semester

Reserve Readings Guidelines

Deadlines

Around Rome

j.weinheimer — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:55:35 CST

Roma C'e

A great magazine to find events in Rome. Click on "English section" for a brochure in English.

In Rome

Scholarly events around Rome

Rome Tourism Site

A site created by the Italian Tourist Agency.

A Walking Tour of Rome

A walking tour from 2006 from the Guardian.

Wanted in Rome

English language magazine in Rome

The American

Another English language magazine in Rome

Portaportese

Buy and sell all kinds of things, based on the flea market.

Movies in Roma C'e.

Look for movies that say v.o. (versione originale). Of course, that may mean that the movie may be in French or German.

Movies at myMovies.it

A very nice movie site.

Piranesi. The Pantheon

Check the weather

Find exhibitions in Rome & Italy (through ArtForum)

Select the region, country and city

Corriere della Sera

The English-language page of the Corriere della Sera.

English-language Books

The main places to get English-language books in Rome.are online from Deastore and The Anglo-American Bookstore. Another good bookstore within easy walking distance of AUR in Trastevere, the Almost Corner Bookstore..(See also the BBC Video!)

The Real Rome (from the BBC)

A series of short videos about places in Rome hosted by Italian journalists. You can even download a walking tour!

Getting There

Rome ATAC page
The latest information on buses, metros and trams in Rome

Trenitalia
Information on train schedules around Italy and Europe

Think Tank Publications

j.weinheimer — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:43:53 CDT

"Think tank" is a commonly used phrase that refers to independent research centers that study and/or advocate social, economic and political policies. Think tanks can claim to be non-partisan but many have a reputation for leaning towards particular political philosophies. (from: Finding Think Tank Reports at Duke University Library). Many of these reports are available online for free. AUR has cataloged many of the publications from some of the major US and UK think tanks. Click a link to find their reports:	Check out our new Think Tank Publication Search Tool

"Think tank" is a commonly used phrase that refers to independent research centers that study and/or advocate social, economic and political policies. Think tanks can claim to be non-partisan but many have a reputation for leaning towards particular political philosophies. (from: Finding Think Tank Reports at Duke University Library).

Many of these reports are available online for free. AUR has cataloged many of the publications from some of the major US and UK think tanks. Click a link to find their reports:
Check out our new

Think Tank Publication
Search Tool

American Enterprise Institute - About
Rand Corporation - About
Council on Foreign Relations - About
Brookings Institution - About
Heritage Foundation - About
Cato Institute - About
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - About
Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) - About
Oxfam - About

For more information, and to find many other publications by various think tanks, go to Think tanks at Source Watch, and look at the websites of the different think tanks. Another good place to find information on thiink tanks isNIRA's world directory of think tanks. Many, if not all, of these organizations put many of their publications online. They must be searched separately, however.

News Feeds

j.weinheimer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:06:12 CDT

There are several parts to our selected journals.

One part of this section uses news feeds to provide links to the latest articles on certain topics from selected scholarly journals. You will see a short description and can go directly to the article. You can go to these pages from the links below

AUR has little control over the content of the news feeds, and occasionally you will see some advertisements and other information. Occasionally, an article may not be available online.

General News

Arts

Business
International Relations
Communications

Italian Studies
Education
Libraries
Technology
Italian Newspapers
Educational Videos/Public Lectures

The second part is a list of links to more popular journals by discipline. All of these journals are represented in the CSI list of journals. There is a third page that allows you to browse all of the journals by subject.

Go to: Links to selected popular magazines
Browse all journals by subject

Another site that does a similar job is Brijit. It is a news reader where people select and summarize the newest articles. It is all searchable by keywords. When an article can be read online, there is a link. To read other articles, you may have to go to the CSI Electronic Print & Journals page.

Remember, all of the articles may not be available!

Check our page that provides updates of Academic Blogs!

Finally, see the page: Articles of Note which provides links to sites that summarize some of the most interesting and important links of current interest.

The purpose of the these pages is to allow AUR students and faculty to stay current on their topics of interest.

Electronic Textbooks

j.weinheimer — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:20:37 CDT

McGraw-Hill
CourseSmart (Was SafariX. Pearson Publishing)
Thomson
Digital Textbooks
Metatext
Wiley
Bedford, Freeman and Worth
Open Access Text Books
The Orange Grove (University of Florida)

See also: OpenCourseWare

Electronic Resources for Study Abroad Students

j.weinheimer — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:30:23 CDT

If you reached this page from the Extend Search, you will have to redo your search in each of the databases at your home school.

This is a list of links to the electronic resources for AUR's study abroad students. You will need your login information from your own school.
If your school is not listed here, pleaseask a librarian for help and we can add it to the list. Getting into your own school's list of individual electronic journals may require a bit of searching, but they should be there! Some are included here for your convenience, but be careful!
It is difficult to keep this list up to date, so all the links may not be current! Please contact us if something should be updated.

For general help how to use these tools, see the Basic Overview in our online workshop Academic Skills for Success in Scholarly Research.

American University (Washington DC)
Augustana College
Journal List
Birmingham University
Boston College
Journal List
Broome C.College
Journal List
Cabrini College
Journal List
Central Michigan University
Journal List
Clarke College
Journal List
College of Dupage

Journal List

The College of New Jersey
Journal List
DeSales University
Journal List
Duquesne University
Journal List
Emory University
Journal List
Fashion Institute of Technology
Journal List
Franklin College
Journal List
George Washington University
Journal List
Georgia Tech
Journal List
Kalamazoo College
Journal List
La Salle University
Lawrence University
Journal List
Manhattanville College
Journal List
Marymount University
Journal List
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Michigan State University
Monmouth University
Journal List
Montclair State University
Journal List
Penn State
Journal List
Philadelphia University
Journal List
Rhode Island University
Journal List
Robert Morris University
Journal List
Sacred Heart University
Journal List
Salve Regina University
Journal List
St. John's University
Journal List
St. Joseph's University
University of Alabama
Journal List
University of Arizona
Journal List
University of California, Santa Cruz
Journal List
University of Denver
Journal List
University of Maryland/Towson
Journal List
University of Michigan
Journal List
University of Massachusetts
Journal List
University of Virginia
Journal List
University of Washington
Journal List
University of Wisconsin
Journal List
Western New England College
Journal List
Whitworth University
Journal List
York College
Journal List

Articles of Note

j.weinheimer — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:24:34 CDT

The links here lead to a few well-known sites that summarize and link into the most current and interesting articles on the web. Most are updated daily or at least weekly. Most of these articles are freely available on the web, but you may have to use the Electronic Journals List as well. If you need a refresher on how to use this, look at the Basic Overview in the Information Literacy Workshop and scroll towards the bottom of the page.

Arts & Letters Daily

Daily report of news in art and literature. Includes reviews of new books, essays and articles.

SciTech Daily
An updated review of science and technology developments - the latest trends, breakthroughs, background, analysis and information.
Slate
Links to articles selected by the editors of Slate as being especially important
The Week
Reviews opinion on popular topics, and provides links to the original articles. Great links for political cartoons too!
Idea of the Day
Articles from different websites collected by the New York Times staff.
The Issue
An attempt to "cull the blogosphere for its wise insights, probing analyses, and diverse perspectives, drawing together a borderless newspaper."
The Opinionator
The Opinionator from the New York Times provides a guide to the wide world of newspaper, magazine and Web opinion.
Op-Ed Pages
Links to the opinion and editorial pages of many newspapers around the world.
Eurozine
Multilingual cultural e-zine that links up and promotes over 100 cultural journals from all over Europe. It includes non-English articles. If you want to see some instant translations, look at: Google Translate.
signandsight.com
The English language service of perlentaucher.de, the largest cultural online magazine in German language. They find and translate into English interesting articles from Europe on all topics. This link goes to their Magazine Roundup.

A little different is the section In Essence from the Wilson Quarterly, which summarizes articles in some of the more scholarly journals. Unfortunately, these links are not online, but the contents of the In Essence section is available. If you find something of interest, you can then access the journal through the Electronic Journals List.

See also: News Feeds and Selected Journals.

Understanding Citations

j.weinheimer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:23:42 CDT

Back to: Making Citations

There are essentially two types of citations: those that utilize a separate bibliography, and those that do not.

The first typedoes not utilize a separate bibliography, so the reference must contain the entire description of the item being cited.
The second type does refer to a separate bibliography where the entire citation will be, so less information is needed.

We'll see examples of each.

BOOKS

It is very important that you understand how to read citations so that when someone refers to a book or article that interests you, you can at least begin to find it yourself. There are several standard formats to create citations for others to use. Each one is different and has its own format, but the information given in the citation should be essentially the same. It should give some idea as to the creator of the item, the titles and subtitles associated with it, the publication information (place, publisher, date) and not least important, the page numbers of the text you are citing.

In most cases, the reference from the text you are citing is just a number set above the rest of the text. This is the method that has been used for a long time, and is an example of the first method mentioned above: it does not rely on a separate bibliography, so the entire information must be in the reference.

At other times, the reference is not a number, but a special character, such as * or §. In our example, the citation itself is at the bottom of the page (bibliographical footnote), but it may be at the end of the entire text (bibliographical endnote).

MLA and other footnotes work slightly differently and will discussed below.In the Journal of Philosophy illustration, the citation for note 2 would be something like (Fuller, B.A.G 123), since it would refer to a citation at the end of the text. This would be an example of second type mentioned above, where the reference relies on a bibliography. As we see, there is less information.

In any case, the final product amounts to the same thing: the reader gets enough information to have an idea of who is responsible for the information, and how it can be found.

How do I Read Book Citations?
Here are some examples of how to understand the information in a book citation.

Page Numbers
We can see that in some formats, the page numbers are included in the citation (e.g. Chicago and Turabian), but in other formats, they may be included in the bibliographic reference shown above. For example, to cite a specific page from the MLA example above, you would do something like

[text referenced from page 123 of J.C. Rolfe's book]. (Rolfe 123)

This lets the readers know that when they go to the Works Cited page, they can find Rolfeand read the citation.

For more information and examples of specific formats, refer to Citation Guides.

How do I Cite Individual Papers from a Collection of Papers in a Book?
Here is an example of a single paper from a collection of papers in a book. We want to cite the article by Prof. Snowden.

Table of Contents
1 Aftoasiatic CARLETON T. HODGE

2 Egypt and Nubia: Old, Middle, and New Kingdom Eras

3 Egypt and the Kushites: Dynasty XXV EDNA R. RUSSMANN

4 The Kingdom of Meroe STANLEY M. BURSTEIN

5 The Ballaia Kingdom and Culture: Twilight of Classical Nubia WILLIAM Y. ADAMS

6 The Berbers of the Maghreb and Ancient Carthage REUBEN G. BULLARD

7 An Archaeological Survey of the Cyrenaican and Marmarican Regions of Northeast Africa DONALD WHITE

8 Attitudes towards Blacks in the Greek and Roman World: Misinterpretations of the Evidence FRANK M. SNOWDEN, JR.

9 Some Remarks on the Processes of State Formation in Egypt and Ethiopia KATHRYN A. BARD AND RODOLFO FATTOVICH

10 Colonizing the Past: Origin Myths of the Great Zimbabwe Ruins MAYNARD W. SWANSON

List of Contributors

The citation is handled normally, but additional information is given for the entire book, so that readers can find the article. Without that information, no one could find it.

Is There Any Help to Make Citations?
Yes, take a look at Automatic Book Citations

JOURNALS

How do I read Journal Citations?
Journal citations are similar to book citations, and are especially similar to the single paper from a collection. With journal citations though, you must include the name and issue number of the journal (otherwise, no one can find the article).

In the following example, we see that the information is very similar to a book citation, except the Title and volume number(s) of the Journal have been included, and the publication information has been left out. (This is because the publication information of an entire journal can change, so such information is of little importance for journals).

Also, be aware that journal titles are often abbreviated.

If you neglect to add the v. 222 no. 2, it would be very difficult to find this specific article, you would be left with the date and it could be difficult to find the issue.

How do I find Abbreviated Titles?
This can be complicated. The best way is to ask a librarian.

What about electronic journals?
This is very simple. You make the citation for the print item, and then add the information concerning how your accessed the item electronically.

Here is an example article and its citation.

Is There Any Help to Make Journal Citations?
Yes, take a look at Automatic Journal Citations

How Do I Read Other Citations?

Article from a Database: No page numbers because there are none on this webpage.

Schrader, Alvin. "INTERNET CENSORSHIP: Issues for teacher-librarians." Teacher Librarian 26.5 (May 1999): 8. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [The American University of Rome Library], [Rome, Italy]. 16 Mar. 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=1934831&site=ehost-live>.

Article from an Internet Journal with no Print Equivalent

Foster, S. K., Paulk, A., & Dastoor, B. R. (1999). Can we really teach test-taking skills? New Horizons in Adult Education, 13 (1). Retrieved February 7, 2000, from http://www.nova.edu/~aed/newhorizons.html

Citations Example: Working with the Bibliography

As we have noted, many times the references work in conjunction with the bibliography. Here is an example. The references, marked in red, refer the reader to the bibliography, located at the back of the item.

Let us turn to the critique of the specific lists under consideration by the Department. It is in their nature to be conservative, and this naturally implies certain biases. The five lists are strongly inclined to favour English as the language of academic discourse and publication. This recognises what is clearly an objective reality in the world of scholarly communication. The Minister of Education, indeed, has stated that he

'acknowledges the current position of English and Afrikaans as the dominant languages of instruction in higher education and believes that in the light of practical and other considerations it will be necessary to work within the confines of the status quo until such time as other South African languages have been developed to a level where they may be used in all higher education functions' (Department of Education 2002: 10).

While we reluctantly accept this as realistic policy, we suggest that the Department may be missing an opportunity for the active promotion of multilingualism. This is a declared policy objective, yet there is no reference to possible support for publication in South African languages anywhere in the Policy and procedures for measurement of research document.

Similarly, the overseas lists and citation indexes are understandably biased in favour of the so-called 'international‘ journals (i.e. predominantly those published in the United States or the United Kingdom).2We shall return to this point below, but we want to emphasise that we are most emphatically not advocating a crude 'local is lekker' philosophy at all costs. Of course South African researchers must publish internationally; and of course the communities of referees doing peer review must remain as diverse as possible. But the lists as they are made up at present are skewed.

A subtle but important point is that journals that are marginally included and excluded in citation lists as the result of ranking by citation impact are vulnerable to 'noise and random effects' that may lead to considerable fluctuations in their rankings over quite short time periods (Rousseau 2002: 428). Thus the inclusion or exclusion of low impact journals from citation lists does not necessarily reflect significant differences in quality.

The lists also tend to favour recognition of print or print-plus-electronic publication as a medium, rather than embracing new means of scholarly communication such as purely electronic journals or scholarly open archives. Adherence to the use of these simple indexes may be predicated on a (perhaps rapidly) disappearing model of scholarly communication.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. The importance of this insight becomes even clearer when we consider that in 1995, ISI was indexing about 3,300 scientific journals from the 70,000 or so published worldwide - or about 4.7 percent of the literature (Gibbs, 1995:76). This level of participation, as Christopher T. Zielinski of the World Health Organization has commented, 'is simply too little to account for the scientific output of eighty percent of the world' (cited by Gibbs, 1995:79).

2. Rousseau argues, citing Garfield, that there is no 'scientifically valid definition of bias' but does not seem to argue against the truth of the charge (2002: 429).

Now we can see the citations for Department of Education, Rousseau and Gibbs.

References
Bradford, S. C. 1948. Documentation. London: Crosby Lockwood.

Brittz, J. J. & Lor, P. 2003. A moral reflection on the information flow from South to North: an African perspective Libri 53f3V 160-173.

Dept.. of Education. 2002. Language policy for higher education. November. [PDF file] Available: http://www.ched.uct.ac.za/offee/ldg/doelanguagepolicy.pdf [site visited 7 March 2004].

Dept. of Education. 2003. Policy and procedures for measurement of research output of public higher education institutions. [PDF file] Available: http://education.pwv.gov.za/content/documents/307.pdf [site visited 7 March 2004].

Garfield, E. 1979. How do we select journals for Current Contents! Current Contents 45 (5 November):5-8.

Garfield, E. 1990. How ISI selects journals for coverage: quantitative and qualitative considerations. Current Contents 22 (28 May): 185-193.

Garfield, E. 1993. Despite problems with peer review, science publishing is healthier than ever. The Scientist, 7(18): 12. [Web page] Available: http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1993/sep/comm_9309Z0.html [site visited 11 August 2003].

Gibbs, W. W. 1995. Lost science in the Third World. Scientific American. 273(2):76-83.

Jacobs, D. 2001. A bibliometric study of the publication patterns of scientists in South Africa 1992-96, with particular reference to status and funding. Information Research 6 (3). Available: http://informationr.net/ir/6-3/paperl04.html [site visited 11 August 2003].

Milloy, S. 2002. Freaky frog fraud. PestFacts.org. [Web page] Available: http://www.pestfacts.org/freakyjrog.html [site visited 11 November 2002].

Moya-Anegon, F. & Herrero-Solana, V. 2002. Visibilidad internacional de la produccion cientffica iberoamericana en biblioteconomia y documentacion, 1991 -2000. Ciencia da Informagao [Brasilia], 31 (3): 54-65.

Romanos de Tiratel, S. and others. 2003. Las revistas argentinas de filologfa, literatura y linguistica: visibilidad en bases de datos internacionales. Ciencia da Informagao [Brasilia], 32 (3): 128-139.

Rousseau, R. 2002. Journal evaluation: technical and practical issues. Library Trends 50(3): 418-439.

Scheven, Y. 1977. Africana in the indexes. History in Africa 4: 207-227.

Sturrock, J. 1998. Le pauvre Sokal. London Review of Books 20 (14) (I6july). Available: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/nl4/sturOI _.html [site visited 11 August 2003].

Theoretical physics: publish and perish. 2002. Economist. 365 (16 November):82.

Warner, J. 2000. A critical review of the application of citation studies to the Research Assessment Exercises

PRE-PRINTS

Now that there are more possibilities to share papers than ever before, some resources that were rather rare to find are beginning to become very easy to find. One of these types of publications are known as pre-prints. This happens when a paper has been accepted preliminarily by a journal, but the final version has not been accepted. Normally, this happens during the scholarly peer-review process, when a paper has been accepted but only with the proviso that certain changes are made. Modern publishing practices has allowed the initial paper to be published.

Some pre-print servers are so powerful that they are often the first place that scholars go, for example, the arXiv.org site, which hosts hundreds of thousands of articles in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics. When you cite one of these resource, It is important to declare the version you are using, but there are only a few guidelines for this. The APA manual says that you should use the term "Advance online publication" in these cases. See the related APA Citation Manual at Monash University Library. Look under the section: Journal article - electronic differing from printed version.

There are many other possibilities for citing sources, and things are changing. It is best to refer to the Citation Guides, which will provide many more examples and formats.

AND.... you can always ask a librarian!

Help in Creating Classes

j.weinheimer — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:03:37 CDT

There are several projects on the World Wide Web that may be of help in assigning course readings and structuring a class as a whole. There is a great deal of interest in Open Course Ware, which shares syllabi, reading lists, class notes, and sometimes, even the entire class, freely on the Web. MIT was the first university to put all of their classes into the OpenCourseWare system.

Open CourseWare Consortium. This is a collection of courses taught by universities around the world. The following quote is taken from its site: "An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware."
There are lots of links to Open CourseWare in the The Ultimate Guide to Using Open Courseware.
Another of this type of collection is Open Education Resources Commons. which includes educational materials from all levels: pre-kindergarten to graduate courses. It also allows users to tag, rate and review the materials.
World Lecture Hall, A similar project located at the University of Texas at Austin.
webcast/courses A very interesting project at UC Berkeley. These courses can be watched online and/or downloaded to an MP3 player. All have audio and several have video as well. Previous courses are archived back to Fall 2001. Not all of Berkeley's courses are online.
Yale University has begun to put some of their courses online. As of this writing there are only seven introductory courses available in Open Yale Courses.
iTunes has created a service called: iTunes U, which has several podcasts of courses given by universities around the country. You need to have iTunes installed on your computer, but then you can download the lectures and listen to them on your computer or your iPod.
Indiana University has put several courses online, and most of them are available free. Here is the list of courses.
The Indian Institutes of Technology have put many courses online. These are primarily engineering courses, but there are several on computer technology as well. Here is the list of courses.

Citation Guides

j.weinheimer — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:30:11 CDT

How to Make Citations

The style for your citations may vary depending on the
requirements of your department, lecturer or supervisor!

The main thing is to cite your references in a consistent manner.

Other libraries have made some excellent guides for citations. Below are the best ones that we have found.

Specific styles:

Quick Guide

Examples from Ursinus College (very good!)

Specifically for Citing Electronic Resources:

Specifically for Citing Images:

See also:

Catalogs of Other Libraries in Rome

j.weinheimer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:18:54 CDT

The Senate Library, or the Biblioteca del Senato della Repubblica "Giovanni Spadolini", and the Library of the Chamber of Deputies, or the Biblioteca della Camera dei deputati are major collections that focus primarily on politics.

See the Senate library's homepage and the Chamber of Deputies library's homepage for more information.
There are still two catalogs that must be searched separately for materials acquired before the above dates. These consist ofdigitized images of their card catalog:

You will probably need help to search these catalogs. Pleaseask a librarian.

Edit16,an Italian catalog of printed books published in Italian from 1501-1600
Bibliografia romana includes bibliographic citations of materials published since 1999 on the subject of the city of Rome, from the early Middle Ages to the present.

Digitized Italian Resources
You can search digitized Italian resources through the Extend Search function and selecting Biblioteca Digitale Italiana. This will search for materials in a large number of Italian digital projects. There are others, however. Here are links to some of them:

OPAL - libri antichi. This site concentrates on books before 1900, but there are some newer books as well.
Liber liber This site includes biographical information on authors, plus there are several audio files for download as well.
Biblioteca Italiana This site concentrates primarily from medieval to the 1900s.

Many catalogs can be searched through the Extend Search function of the AUR Library Catalog. Click here for more information.

Research Guides

j.weinheimer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:58:33 CDT

See also: Doing Research (General Remarks)

and try our

A research guide is a manual created by librarians and other scholars to help users find the materials they need. Research guides can be general, e.g. general directions on how to search for a book, or research guides canbe specific, e.g. a list of important reference books for medieval Italian art.

AUR's research guides attempt to bring together the best of the guides made by other schools and use these to help AUR students to do their own research.

Please note: Each frame is adjustable, so if you want to see more or less of any particular page, just click & drag the frame border to adjust the size.

Go to the Research Guides: Communications International Relations Arts History Italian Studies Business Marketing Classics Find Images	Take a 2-Minute Tutorial on Using the Research Guides

Go to the Research Guides:

Take a 2-Minute Tutorial
on Using the Research Guides

Extending the Search

j.weinheimer — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:10:31 CST

The purpose of the Extend Search capability is to help you search other, selected databases in a reliable manner. The way it works is: the computer takes the text you select in the record you are viewing, and uses it to search the databases and catalogs you select. This can be especially powerful if you use it to select the the controlled vocabulary.

For more information, seeTraditional Bibliographic Tools, which discusses controlled vocabulary.

Doing this type of search can take some time because it is very complex behind the scenes, therefore, it may take some time to complete the searches. There are two ways to search what is available in other collections:

when you are in the catalog, you can select any text and a button will appear that says "Extend Search"

Click on this button you will go into a separate page where you can select different groups of databases. Selecting any of these groups will automatically search a variety of databases preselected by the AUR Library. If you want to know more about the database groups, you can click on About.

Click on the type at the top, and the specific databases will show up below. Click on a databases, e.g. the Senato Library, and a box will open up with the search done for you. Close the window and go to the next database. If you want more information on a particular database, you can click its name and a box with additional information will appear.

You can always refine your search in different ways once you are in each database. You can consult the help pages of each database, or ask a librarian.
If you find something that interests you, you can click on Continue to Search AUR Library Materials and you can search in the AUR Library Catalog (starting all over again) or into the Electronic Journals list. Simply cut and paste the information into the box above, select AUR Library Catalog or Electronic Journals List, and you can discover what the AUR Library has.

You can also select "Search Other Collections" which will allow you to enter your own text into a box.

Some of the links go into open access/open archive databases.

These resources are divided into specific types. For more information on each type, see:

You may notice that when you select Subject or Title, you can select multiple controlled vocabulary, but when you select Authors, you can only select one. The reason is that some databases will not work when multiple authors are selected.

Google Translate

j.weinheimer — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:50:39 CST

Google has created a very interesting and useful tool for looking at web materials in different languages. Go to Google Translation Tools, choose the language you want and drag it to the browser's toolbar.

The translations are not perfect of course, but they can give you the basic ideas, plus when you scroll over the translation, you will see the original text pop-up.

It's not a bad way to expand your information universe!

Government Documents

j.weinheimer — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:12:05 CST

Government documents are publications produced by city, state, federal, or international governments. They may also be from any nation.

United States Government Publications
Today, many government documents are automatically put online. One of the best ways of searching these materials is through the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, put out by the Government Printing Office. The materials are searchable through titles, subjects and authors and are on a variety of subjects.

The AUR Library Catalog helps you search this catalog more easily by using the Extend Search feature. After selecting the relevant text in the catalog, then choose Electronic Book Projects. From here, select U.S. Govt. Documents. You can click on the database name for guides for more information.

There are additional ways of finding U.S. Government documents. See Finding Government Documents Today for an excellent discussion.

State Documents and non-U.S. Government Publications
State documents and non-U.S. government publications are often available on the web as well, but there is not a comprehensive resource for these documents. Publications of the Parliament of the United Kingdom can be found at this site. There are links to historical records at British History Online.

One of the best collections of links for non-U.S. government publications is
Government documents from Truman State University. Also keep in mind Portals to the World maintained by the Library of Congress.

International Government Documents
International agencies such as the European Union and the different parts of the United Nations also produce many documents on many topics. Most of the time, you must find the organization's website and then search their Documents or Publications. One of the best ways to find these websites is through Northwestern University's International Documents Collection. Again, select the organization, go to their website, and you should find something similar to Documents or Publications that you can browse or search.

College of Staten Island Electronic Resources

j.weinheimer — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:28:06 CST

AUR has a special arrangement with the College of Staten Island for use of their electronic resources. All AUR students and faculty have access to these materials from on campus simply by clicking on a database. Off-campus access is still being worked on at CSI.

The previous methods using barcodes no longer works!

You can access these materials through the list of individual journals or by clicking on individual databases.

For more information on how to find these materials more efficiently, see: Academic Skills for Success in Scholarly Research

Study-Abroad students can also access electronic resources through their home schools. See more information for Study-Abroad students,

Automatic Journal Citations

j.weinheimer — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:20:08 CST

Most electronic databases allow you to get citations automatically, but unfortunately, there are different methods. The most common method is, once you have your article

save the article(s) to a folder
go to the folder
select Print and/or Email,
att this point there is normally an option for you to select your format.

Be aware that the formats may not be 100% complete and you may have to complete them! Citations are your responsibility!

Here is an example from Academic Search Premier:

Step 1: Find the article and select or add it to your folder

Step 2: Go to your folder and select Email and/or Print.

Step 3: Select the format you want and send.

See also: Automatic Book Citations

Automatic Book Citations

j.weinheimer — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:19:06 CST

See also: Citations, Plagiarism and Copyright Manual
Making Citations

Book citations are available through the largest catalog of books in the world: WorldCat. When you click on Get a Citation, the catalog automatically searches WorldCat for the ISBN and/or the author and title. You may have a few records to select from, but when you have selected the correct one, look inside the record and click on Cite this Item. You will get a window with the different formats of citations for your item.

Example:

When you click on Cite this Item, you will get a list of different formats.
Be aware that the citations may not be 100% complete and you may have to complete them! Citations are ultimately your responsibility!

Also, a citation will probably change if an item is electronic.
Do not simply copy and paste!

See also: Citation Guides

See also: Automatic Journal Citations