- Here is a screenshot of the page
- If you don’t know how to find something that you know should be available make use of the ask a librarian service, look on the left hand side, half way down you see “Want Help? Ask a Librarian” here is a link to that page: http://library.ucf.edu/Ask/ from here I generally always use the chat, this is because it is efficient and concise as opposed to a phone conversation where you make small talk and can be put on hold and you are stuck standing there with a phone in your hand. Being a multitasker, I just switch back to what I was doing while I wait on the chat response. If this doesn’t work out I will call or go in person. Many times I am in a “research zone” mentally and the last thing I want to do is get distracted, another reason the chat works best for me, it is a bit impersonal and that’s what I need to stay focused.
- Useful things to explore before starting your research
- Research Guides – Also located on the Home page under Find, the second link down. Click on the link, http://guides.ucf.edu/ from here there are a lot of guides available. Each librarian can make their own guide on different topics. We want to focus on Engineering so
- On the right hand side click on Engineering, it takes you to here http://guides.ucf.edu/cat.php?cid=8548 every one of these guides are useful to you when starting research. Once you get going you may never look at these again but you should now I will point out a few but look at all of them.
- Create a RefWorks account, you will need to use the links above and use your library login to create the account. Use the quick start guide if it gets confusing. Call/email me if it is still confusing.
- Learn how to add folders
- Learn how to import references
- Set up your default citation settings to IEEE format.
- Always double check references before logging out, make sure all info that you need is entered.
- Every time you start a new topic of research create a new folder and add your papers to this folder
- It is also a good idea to have sub-folders in each topic area that are something along the lines of:
- Read an Liked it
- Read and Hated it
- Gray Area
- Unread
- In the beginning, all of the papers and sources you have will be in the unread folder and as you go through them sort them accordingly.
- The Gray Area is important because you do not always know if the resource is useful or not until you become a subject matter expert so don’t hesitate to use this subfolder.
Ok, I’m going to leave this here and there will probably be another part on this later once it is time to write a paper or dissertation…. but for now on to the next topic.
If you are not a UCF student a lot of this will still apply to you, you will simply be using your schools library website.