Doing Research

The control of the mass of bibliographical references that you will acquire is important. If you want to save yourself a great deal of extra work and frustration, do keep a note of full bibliographical details of books and journal articles that you have read, and which you may want to cite in your bibliography. It is also useful to make a note of where you found the reference e.g. the name of the database.

If you are starting a large piece of written work such as a dissertation or thesis it is well worthwhile investigating the use of a bibliographic database package to help you manage your references. These packages can store bibliographic information, notes, keywords, and full abstracts for your references. You are also able to search, sort and print your citations in a variety of styles, and "cite while you write". You can also import downloaded records you have retrieved from electronic database services. 

The supported bibliographic software package on campus is Reference Manager, find out more Reference Manager.

page last modified 10 July, 2006