1. Deciphering Citations Finding the References Cited in an Article or Book or Something Else

2. Below is a snapshot of the references at the end of a scholarly journal article in the field of education . . .

3. Scan the list quickly to get a sense of it.

4. For the purpose of “putting your hands on them”, it is best to think of these citations as falling into three categories . . .

5. Books, Journals, “Googleable” things

6. Books, Journals, “Googleable” things (I made that last one up, but I think you know what I mean!)

7. So, can you tell which of these are BOOKS?

8. These two are pretty easy to pick out.

9. But, did you catch this one?

10. This is actually a reference to a CHAPTER in a BOOK.

11. Notice the word in is actually in the reference itself!

12. Notice the word in is actually part of the citation itself!

13. Book references will always include a place of publication.

14. and a publisher.

15. And, in most formatting styles, like APA, the book’s title will be in italics .

16. The best way to locate these books is to do a TITLE search in the library’s catalog, OSCAR.

17. The best way to locate these books is to do a TITLE search in the library’s catalog, OSCAR.

18. Don’t be fooled by the CHAPTER title! You won’t find the book by looking that up on OSCAR.

19. Let’s move on to the journal articles now. Can you pick them out?

20. These four are all citations to articles in journals.

21. Although citation styles vary, the title of the JOURNAL (or MAGAZINE or NEWSPAPER) will usually appear in italics .

22. And, it is THAT title, not the article title, that you will need in order to find out whether or not the library has this item.

23. You are going to be looking that JOURNAL title up in our Journals & Magazines search on the library homepage.

24. You are going to be looking that title up in our Journals & Magazines search on the library homepage.

25. The specific YEAR and VOLUME are also going to be important.

26. Let’s look at an example.

27. How about this article in Higher Education ?

28. Specifically, we need 2005, volume 50.

29. So, let’s look up Higher Education in a Journals & Magazines search on the library homepage.

30. That search gets this response.

31. Ours is the first one, with the simple title Higher Education .

32. Remember, we need the 2005, volume 50.

33. Looks like that is available in multiple databases.

34. All of those DATABASES should include 2005!

35. Regardless of which one you select, you will still need to do a search for the specific ARTICLE once you are in the database.

36. If you click on JSTOR, for example.

37. You would see this.

38. This is the JSTOR record for the journal Higher Education .

39. This is the JSTOR record for the journal Higher Education .

40. You can browse the years and VOLUMES available,

41. or do a search for a specific article

42. by typing in keywords from the title of the article you need.

43. Remember that article?

44. You want to use 3 or 4 significant keywords from that ARTICLE title.

45. Don’t just block-and-copy the entire title.

46. And, never put in marks of punctuation.

47. In this case I would try this: networked learning expectations experiences in that search box.

48. In this case I would try this: networked learning expectations experiences in that search box.

49. And, I would get these results.

50. The article I want is the very first one.

51. Click on PDF to open and download it.

52. Let’s go back now to our list of citations or references.

53. We’ve looked at the BOOKS.

54. We’ve looked at articles in journals.

55. What was the THIRD thing?

56. “ Googleable” things?

57. Which are those?

58. In this case, it is these two.

59. Reports of organizations, papers at conferences, government publications, even dissertations and theses, are all things you should try to find through a Google search first.

60. If you can’t find them through a Google search, then try searching them by TITLE in OSCAR, as if they were books.

61. For anything you cannot find using the process described here, go to the library homepage and click on Interlibrary Loan & LINK+ .

62. For anything you cannot find using the process described here, go to the library homepage and click on Interlibrary Loan & LINK+ .

63. Read the FAQ s carefully.

64. LINK+ is used for BOOKs.

65. Bronco Express for everything else.

66. The End .