Plagiarising parrots and better references with Endnote

Are you worried about accidental plagiarism? Would you like some advice from your librarians? Call in to Bay Library between 11.30 and 13.30 today and tomorrow to meet Pryderi the parrot and to find out about good academic practice from your subject librarians. We also have a drop in Breakfast Bites session on Accidental Plagiarism from 8.15 to 8.50 tomorrow in PC Room 2.

If you would like some help managing your references and inserting citations in your assignments, sign up for 5 Days of Endnote this week. Just follow the blog: https://5daysofendnote.wordpress.com/. You will learn how to create an Endnote account, export reference details from iFind and insert references and citations in Word.

Breakfast Bites – Accidental Plagiarism: 21/03/18 8.15-8.50am

Plagiarism and referencing can be confusing. In this Breakfast Bites session we’ll look at plagiarism in more depth and provide practical advice on how to avoid unintentionally plagiarising in your work.

Breakfast Bites workshops are held once a week in Bay Library’s PC Room 2 from 8.15am until 8.50am. The sessions are open to all staff and students. No need to book, just come along on the day!

5 Days of APA Referencing: Day 5. Useful tools

There are a wide variety of tools which are freely available to help you with citing and creating reference lists, however none of them are perfect which is why it is important you know the basics of APA referencing and the key points to be aware of.

iFind, the library catalogue has a tool which recommends how books and journal articles should look in the APA style of referencing. (We looked at this briefly on Days 1 and 2.) Click on Library, then Actions then Citation to view this. You can view a short screencast of this online.

Always check this! The tool is good but it will make some mistakes therefore you need to know which bits of information are required.

Some databases also have a tool that formats a reference for you. We have produced short screencasts of how to do this in Business Source Complete and in Proquest Business Collection. You must remember to check that the information is correct, though!

Referencing using word (Manage sources)
Word has a referencing tab on the tools bar which can be useful if you use the same laptop or computer to write assignments.  It will manage your sources and input in the correct APA style. We have produced a short guide to help you.  Take a look at the help pages available on the Microsoft Office site for more details on using this tool.

Endnote Online
Endnote is the tool Swansea University subscribes to, there is a desktop version for PCs on campus but the online version is very useful as you can use it anywhere that you have access to the internet. You can create your own library of sources and use the Cite While You Write feature in Word which will format your references in the APA style.

The library has produced an online guide to the web version of EndNote. We can provide further training if you would like to use it. Look out for 5 Days of EndNote (#su5doe) next week. You can sign up to learn about EndNote Online in short, bite-size chunks.

 

Thanks for participating in 5 days of referencing (#su5dor) remember referencing help and advice is always available from your School of Management librarians. You can book a one-one appointment (also available via skype), email us, or call in the Library to speak with one of us. 

Now that you’ve mastered APA referencing, look out for our plagiarism event running next week in the library:-

• Take Pryderi’s Plagiarism Challenge
• Get support and advice from your librarians
• Book one to one session for in depth queries

Watch out for Pryderi the Plagiarising Parrot!

Good luck with your assignments!

5 Days of APA Referencing: Day 4. Formatting your reference list

Over the last 3 days we have looked at the 3 main information sources you will be using in your assignment, academic books, journal articles and online documents/websites.  It is important that your reference list provides all the information in order for your lecturers to be able to find the source if they wanted.

It is also important that it is formatted in the correct APA style.  This is sometimes where students struggle and spend a long time manually formatting their lists; however there are a number of tools in word that can make this process quicker and easier for you.

Key points

• The reference list should start on a new page.
• Your reference list should include everything you have cited in your assignment NOT everything you have read (which is called a bibliography).
• It should be alphabetical according to author’s surname.
• It should be double-spaced and indented.

If we use all the resources we have looked at over the last 3 days my reference list would look like this:

To do this is 3 easy steps in word, firstly highlight the reference list, then select the icon A-Z from the options, then to double space and indent the list choose the small arrow next to paragraph and from the options choose Special>Hanging, then Line spacing>double.

Here’s a short screencast to show you how to format the list using the tools in Word.  

Questions?

If you have any questions so far let us know using the comments section in the blog or via twitter using #su5dor. You can also email buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Tomorrow we’ll look at tools that can help you reference.

5 Days of Referencing: Day 3. Websites and online documents

Remember what we said on day 1? The key to referencing well in an assignment is firstly to use good reliable sources.  Make sure you evaluate anything you find online using the WWWW method:

Who – Who wrote the information?
Why – Why is this information there (Is there a bias?)
When – When was it published (is it current enough?)
Where – Where is it from (clues in the URL ie: .com, .ac.uk)

The main sections you need to make a note of in order to reference a website or online document correctly are:

• Author(s) (personal or corporate)
• Year of publication
• Title of website/document
• Date of retrieval (only needed if the source is likely to be updated)
• Direct working URL

Very often some bits of information will not be available with online documents; a common one is no date – in this case you can do the following:

• No date? – use (n.d.) instead

You can find further advice on pages 19 – 21 of our APA referencing guide.

In the reference list
Here are a few examples:

Websites
You only need to include a date of retrieval in the reference list if you think a website maybe updated (it’s difficult to know this sometimes).

Tesco PLC. (n.d.). Our businesses. Retrieved March 10, 2017,           from https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/our-businesses/.

Online publication
This reference links to the PDF version of the code which has a published date, therefore it does not need a date of retrieval.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (2016). Annual       report and accounts 2015-16. Retrieved from https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/annual-report-2015- 16_tcm18-16632.pdf

 In text citation
A good tip if you are going to use the same citation a few times in your assignment is to use acronyms.  You must explain the acronym in full the first time you use it, followed by the acronym so it is clear to your lecturer what is stands for.

First citation:
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2016, p.18) a “healthy, happy and engaged workforce is an important indicator of our success”.

Or

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2016) a “healthy, happy and engaged workforce is an important indicator of our success” (p.18).

Or

A “healthy, happy and engaged workforce is an important indicator of our success” (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 2016, p.18).

Second citation
Because you explained the acronym in the first citation you can now just use the acronym on any subsequent citations in text.

Engagement in ongoing training and development is “the key to a successful career” (CIPD, 2016, p.18).

Or

The CIPD (2016) state that employees should engage in ongoing training and development as it is “the key to a successful career” (p.18).

Questions?

If you have any questions so far let us know using the comments section in the blog or via twitter using #su5dor. You can also email buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Tomorrow we’ll look at formatting your reference list.

5 Days of APA Referencing: Day 2. Journal articles

Journal articles are an excellent source of up-to-date and reliable information. The best students use journal articles as well as books in their research.

Do you remember which information you needed to reference a book? There are a few more bits of information in a journal article which you need to make a note of in order to reference it correctly. The main sections you need to make a note of are:

• Author(s)
• Year of publication
• Title of article
• Journal name
• Volume
• Issue number (only use if there is no continuous pagination, i.e.: if each issue begins with page 1)
• Page number
• doi (if available)

If you have the journal article in front of you, you can normally find this information on the first page.  Alternatively search for the article on iFind, the library catalogue (using the ‘Articles & more’ tab) and you will be able to see the bibliographic information you need in order to reference correctly. You can also use the Citation option in the Actions menu to see the APA reference. Remember to check the details are correct, though!

This is how this journal article should look in the reference list
Cohen, J., Manzon, G., & Zamora, B. (2015). Contextual and individual dimensions of taxpayer decision making. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(4), 631-647.

In text citation
Sometimes you may want to cite a direct quote in your assignment, however try to use direct quotes sparingly as paraphrasing shows a better understanding of your topic.

If you decide you would like to include a direct quote it is very important you use quotation marks and you always include page numbers.  There are a number of ways you can do this:

• At the start of the sentence:
  According to Cohen, Manzon and Zamora (2015, p. 632) “There are a number of non-economic factors that potentially affect taxpayer decisions.”

Or

According to Cohen, Manzon and Zamora (2015) “There are a number of non-economic factors that potentially affect taxpayer decisions” (p. 632).

• At the end of the sentence:
  “There are a number of non-economic factors that potentially affect taxpayer decisions” (Cohen, Manzon & Zamora 2015, p. 632).

How many authors should I include?
Journal articles and indeed books can sometimes be written by many authors, APA has a specific rule for how many authors you should include in-text.

Let’s use this journal article as an example:

Fast, N., Sivanathan, N., Mayer, N., & Galinsky, A. (2012). Power and overconfident decision-making. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 117(2), 249-260.

If the resource you want to cite has 3-5 authors (which this example does) you must include all the authors the first time you cite, therefore it would look like this in text:

First citation
According to Fast, Sivanathan, Mayer and Galinsky (2012) overconfident leaders perform poorly.

Or

Overconfident leaders perform poorly (Fast, Sivanathan, Mayer & Galinsky, 2012).

Second citation
Because you included all 4 authors in the first citation you can now use et al. on any subsequent citations in text.

Fast et al. (2012) found that individuals with a subjective feeling of power tend to overestimate their abilities.

Or

Individuals with a subjective feeling of power tend to overestimate their abilities (Fast et al., 2012).

If the resource you want to cite has 6 or more authors you can use et al. the first time you cite.

Questions?

If you have any questions so far let us know using the comments section in the blog or via twitter using #su5dor. You can also email buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Tomorrow we’ll look at websites and online documents.

Breakfast Bites – Research Methodology: 14/03/18 8.15-8.50am

Choosing an appropriate research methodology can be a confusing process. Finding a research methodology that is right for your research project will help set you on the path to success. This workshop will introduce you to some important considerations and provide tips and techniques to help guide you.

Breakfast Bites workshops are held once a week in Bay Library’s PC Room 2 from 8.15am until 8.50am. The sessions are open to all staff and students. No need to book, just come along on the day!

If you can make it to the workshop, but would like some help with your research methodology, please email us at buslib@swansea.ac.uk or use the Book a Librarian calendar on our Library Guide to make an appointment.

5 Days of APA Referencing: Day 1. Referencing Books

Welcome to this short online course which will run over the next 5 days.  Although this is specifically tailored for those in the School of Management there are tips that any student using APA style of referencing can use.

We will cover the basics to help you get started with APA style referencing and give you some advice on tools you can use to help you.  The APA 6^th edition style of referencing is a widely recognised style and has clear rules around how to reference different types of material.

APA is an author/date style of referencing. This means that you cite the author(s) surname(s) and the date of publication in the text of your assignment and then the full details of the resources you used (books, journal articles, online documents) in an alphabetical list at the end called a reference list.  There is a full and comprehensive APA referencing guide available on Library Guides. There is also a short APA guide available online with paper copies in the library.

Why do I have to reference?
Referencing is a very important part of your academic course.  If you use someone else’s work without acknowledging them you will be committing plagiarism.  Referencing correctly will not only give the author of the work full recognition but also demonstrate to your lecturer you have read academic sources and read widely.  The key to referencing well in an assignment is to always use good reliable sources.  Finding stuff on the internet is easy; finding good reliable stuff on the internet is a little more challenging.

We would always recommend you start by looking at the reading list provided to you by your lecturer on Blackboard.  Look to the left of the screen in any Blackboard module and you can see a link to the interactive reading list.

Each resource in the reading list will allow you to click on it and it will take you back to iFind, the library catalogue.  The library catalogue will give you enough bibliographic information to be able to reference the resource you need.

Referencing Books
Let’s start with referencing a book today. As an example, we’ll use the book Economics which is written by Michael Parkin, Kent Matthews and Melanie Powell.

The main sections you need to make a note of in order to reference a book correctly are:

• Author(s) or Editor(s)
• Year of publication
• Title of book
• Edition (if applicable)
• Place of publication
• Publisher

If you have the book in front of you, you can normally find this information on the cover and inside the title page.

This is how this book would look in the reference list
Parkin, M., Matthews, K., & Powell, M. (2014). Economics. (9^th ed.). Harlow: Pearson.

To help you, there’s a Citation option in the Actions menu on iFind (see below).

You might need to make a few changes to the citation from iFind, though. Can you see the mistakes in the reference below?

In text citation
If you want to cite this book in text, there are 2 ways you can do it:

• At the start of the sentence
  According to Parkin, Powell and Matthews (2014) the study of economics is not just about money, but about the motivation and consequences of making choices.
• At the end of the sentence
  The study of economics is not just about money, but about the motivation and consequences of making choices (Parkin, Powell & Matthews, 2014).

Note: Link the two authors’ names with and when cited outside parentheses. Link with an ampersand (&) inside parentheses.

Questions?

If you have any questions so far let us know using the comments section in the blog or via twitter using #su5dor. You can also email buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

Tomorrow we’ll look at journal articles.

 

SNL Finance

Following the merger of SNL Finance and S&P the interface and the content of S&P Market Intelligence programme has changed and is continually increasing as more data is being added.

The University subscribes to the banking focus element of the resource which includes financial data for banks and other financial institutions in the US, Europe and MEA.  Data is current but there is a huge amount of historical information available.

There are two main platforms for SNL Finance, the online platform and Excel.

SNL Finance Online

At present, the database can only be accessed from one of our campus. The easiest way to go to the database is via our library guides at http://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/management/data.  From this page you can see a tab to SNL finance which gives you content information and also a link to access the resource.

The first thing you need to do if you have not already is to register (highlighted below). This is a very quick process that requires your name and Swansea university email.

Once registered you can begin to explore the resource. The screen defaults to News and it contains up-to date information on the financial sector.  There is a very up-to the minute Newswire but also two news streams; The Daily Dose and Daily Digest that expand on the news and give authoritative backing to sources if available.  Once logged in you can alter the layout and content that is immediately available.

The Search box within SNL Finance is at the top of the screen (highlighted yellow).

There is so much information that the Advanced Search is sometimes necessary to allow you to filter the information further.

Once you have done a search, the example below is for Halifax Group Ltd information can be filtered using facets on the left-hand side of the screen.

In the case above, you can gather information on the Corporate Structure, People Summary, News and Events and Key Developments but these facets differ depending on your search. A search for a county will generate economic and demographic data, information on the countries CDP and Debt etc.  There is so much information that it is worth exploring the resource to give an idea of the content available.

Visible on the top of the majority of screens are the following links to help you store, export and built reports.

Building Reports

This can be done by clicking on Build a Report once you have generated your results or by going to My Saved Items, My Reports and then Create New Report.

With this second option you can then search for Companies, Assets or Company Lists, after you have found the information you can filter and run your report as a PDF or Excel Sheet, have it sent to your email and select the frequency.

SNL Finance using Excel

The SNL Finance plug-in is available from SNL on the Swansea University Unified Desktop.

Even if you are in SNL Finance Online you will need to Sign in within the Excel Sign In. You will then be able to build your reports using the same functionality as the online platform using the SNL Ribbon features outlined below.

When saving the Single-cell functions will  create a dynamic spreadsheet while the default Table function will create a static excel report.

Further Information and Help

Further information and guidance is available from SNL. They can be contacted via the support link on the online platform.  This link also directs to training videos and paper.

Training and SNL content videos are also available via The S&P Market Intelligence YouTube channel which can be found here.

Or further information please contact your library team:

Business Library Team: buslib@swansea.ac.uk
The Bay Library
Swansea University
T +44 (0)1792 505500

Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SwanseaUniLib

https://www.youtube.com/user/SPCapitalIQ/videos?disable_polymer=

 

 

5 Days of APA Referencing #su5dor

Do you need to improve your referencing skills? Not sure where to start? Sign up for 5 Days of Referencing! It will run from Monday 12th March to Friday 16th March. Each day, we’ll look at a different aspect of APA referencing so that by the end of the week you’ll be able to:-

• Reference books, journal articles and websites
• Easily format your reference list
• Use tools to help you cite and reference

When you improve your referencing skills, you make it easier to keep a record of the material you’re reading. Your references show your lecturer that you have done your research. Paying attention to the format and presentation of your references could earn you some extra marks in your assignments. 5 Days of Referencing will help you to develop these skills by giving you information and advice in short, bitesize chunks.

To sign up, just follow our blog (enter your email address in the column on the right) or look out for the hashtag #su5dor on Twitter.