How to find things on your reading list

Emma Coonan

emc35@cam.ac.uk

Session objectives

Decipher what’s on your reading list

Find books and journals on Newton

Find journal articles online

Save time and frustration!

1. Books and book chapters

Brabazon, Tara. The University of Google: Education in the (Post) Information Age. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. [MLA style]

Burn, Andrew, and Jenny Leach, ‘ICT and moving image literacy in English,’ in The impact of ICT on literacy education, ed. by Richard Andrews (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2004) [MHRA style]

Finding books on Newton

Bear in mind that on Newton you need to look for the book title, not the chapter details

Tips for searching Newton: 1

Too much information?

Newton’s ‘keyword’ search finds results for each one of your keywords

Searching on Introduction to economics finds all the records with the word ‘introduction’ or the word ‘to’ or the word ‘economics’

Result: frustration

Solution: use Guided Search

Tips for searching Newton: 2

Can’t find anything?

Newton’s title search requires precise entries: leaving out a word or a letter can cause your search to fail

Newton won’t suggest alternative spellings if you make a typo error

Result: frustration

Solution: use Boolean logic

‘introduction’ OR ‘to’ OR ‘economics’ = any of these words

‘introduction’ AND ‘to’ AND ‘economics’ = all of these words (but not necessarily in this order)

Think ‘fish AND chips’ / ‘love AND marriage’

You already know how to do this!

A note about e-books …

You can find our electronic books at

www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources/ - or just search as usual in Newton

Click here to access the electronic version

2. Journals and journal articles

Yeh, Michelle. “The ‘Cult of Poetry’ in Contemporary China.” Journal of Asian Studies 55 (1996): 51-80. [Turabian style]

Mellers, B. A. (2000). Choice and the relative pleasure of consequences. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 910-924. [APA style]

Finding journals on Newton

Bear in mind that on Newton you need to look for the journal title, not the article details

Journal titles are notoriously tricky! Is it - Journal of … Journal of the … Journal for … International journal of … ?

If in doubt, use Boolean search

Check ejournals@cambridge

If you can’t find your journal on Newton, or If you’d prefer an electronic version:

www.lib.cam.ac.uk/ejournals

Look for the journal title here too

… not the article details

Searching directly for articles

“There’s a great article comparing Ingres and Delacroix, by a guy called Shelton” [Supervisor recommendation – not a style!]

Solution: use CrossSearch

If you’re not certain of the article details, or If you want to check quickly if your article is

available online:

www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources/

Select your subject area

Enter the details you have

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Set your preferences for Cambridge University

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