Information Literacy Unit 2: Identifying Resources
The following notes and the related quiz will assist you in identifying the various resources in your course reading lists.
Book citations
Your course reading lists contain citations (references) to many types of resources including journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and websites. Examples of citations, using the Harvard(author-date)referencing style, appear below:
Example - Book Citation
author year of publication book title publisher
Œ Œ Œ Œ
Allen, M 1997, Smart thinking: skills for critical understanding and writing, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
‹
place of publication
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following lists provides the same information:
Author = Allen, M (family name, thengiven name initial)
Year of publication = 1997
Book title = Smart thinking: skills for critical understanding and writing
Publilsher = Oxford University Press
Place of publication = Oxford
The Harvard (author/date) referencing style is the required referencing style for this course and as such you should also pay attention to the punctuation used and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
Book Chapter Citations
When a book is an edited text this means that the individual chapters are written by different people. If you use information from an edited text your referenceneeds to provide information about the chapter author and title, as well as the book editors and the book title.
Example - Book Chapter Citation
author year of publication chapter title editors book title
Œ Œ Œ Œ Œ
Byrne, J 1995, ‘Disabilities in tertiary education’, in L Rowan & J McNamee (eds), Voices of a margin, CQU Press, Rockhampton. ‹ ‹
publisher place of publication
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following list provides the same information:
Author =Byrne, J(family name, thengiven name initial)
Year of publication = 1995
Chapter title = ‘Disabilities in tertiary education’
Editor/s = in L Rowan & J McNamee (eds) (notice theeditors initials come before their family name)
Book title = Voices of a margin
Publisher = CQU Press
Place of publication = Rockhampton
You should also pay attention to the punctuation used and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
Website Citations
If you use websites as a source of information for an assessment task, you must provide the reader (marker) with enough information to be able to view that website if required. Whenever possible you should try and determine the date the material on the website was created or updated. Because websites can change, it is also necessary to indicate the day you viewed the website.
Example - Website Citation
author year of publication title date viewed
Œ Œ Œ Œ
CQU Student Services 2006, First Year Experience, viewed 4 February, 2007, http://studentservices.cqu.edu.au/firstyearexperience.html
‹
website address (URL)
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following list provides the same information:
Author =CQU Student Services (usually the author of a website will be an organisation)
Year of publication = 2006
Title = First Year Experience
Date viewed = 4 February, 2007
Website address (URL) = http://studentservices.cqu.edu.au/firstyearexperience.html
You should also pay attention to the punctuation used and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
NOTE: If this is your first year at university you may want to visit the above website and see if you can get some hints to help make your first year of study a more successful and less stressful experience.
Journal Article Citations (print / hard copy)
Journal articles are particularly useful resources as they can provide some of the most current, reliable and focusedinformation on a topic. Current: because they are usuallypublished more frequently than textbooks. Reliable: because, unlike websites, articles in peer refereed journals have been accepted for publication by other scholars in the field. Focused: because the articles are usually on quite particular topics and within more constrained word limitsthan textbooks.
Example - Journal Article Citation (articles located in print / hard copy)
authors year of publication article title journal title
Œ Œ Œ Œ
Chickering AW & Kytle J 1999, ‘The collegiate ideal in the twenty-first century’, New Directions for Higher Education, vol.1999 , no. 105, pp. 109-120.
‹ ‹ ‹
volume issue pages
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following list provides the same information:
Authors =Chickering AW & Kytle J
Year of publication = 1999
Article title = ‘The collegiate ideal in the twenty-first century’
Journal title = New Directions for Higher Education
Volume = vol. 1999 (NOTE:Not all volume numbers match the year of publication as in this example.)
Issue = no. 105
Pages = pp. 109-120 (NOTE: You need to include the numbers for the first page of the article and the last page of the article. Do not just list the page numbers you use.)
You should also pay attention to the punctuation used, the abbreviations (eg,"no." for"issue")and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
Journal Article Citations (articles located in a database)
More and more journal articles can be sourced from databases and websites. The next example of how to reference a journal article is for an article found on a database. The CQU Library website provides search functions for students to be able to find articles on an enormous number of different databases. The more you practice finding articles on databases the easier it will become to find useful relevant information and also the more familiar you will become with those databases that are of most use to your area of study. Don't panic if you find databases a bit scary at first, this is a common experience. You will have the opportunity to learn database searching in later weeks in this course and probably several other courses during the time of your studies. For now, just be aware that if you do use a journal article sourced from a database, your reference will need to indicate your database source, as follows:
Example - Journal Article Citation (database)
author year of publication article title journal title
Œ Œ Œ Œ
Mulgan, R 2000, ‘Perspectives on “the public interest”’, Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration,
no. 95, March, pp. 5–12, (online ProQuest).
‹ ‹ ‹
issue pages database
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following list provides the same information:
Author =Mulgan, R
Year of publication = 2000
Article title = ‘Perspectives on "the public interest"'
Journal title = Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration
Volume = (NOTE:There is no volume number in this example. Some journals have volumes and no issues, and vice versa.)
Issue = no. 95
Pages = pp. 5-12 (NOTE: You need to include the numbers for the first page of the article and the last page of the article. Do not just list the page numbers you use.)
Database = (online ProQuest)
You should also pay attention to the punctuation used, the abbreviations (eg,"no." for"issue")and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
Journal Article Citations (articles located on the Web)
This final example for referencing is fora journal article where the sourceof thearticleis a website.
Example - Journal Article Citation (website)
author year of publication article title journal title
Œ Œ Œ Œ
Kennedy, I 2004, ‘An assessment strategy to help forestall plagiarism problems’, Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development, vol. 1, no. 1, viewed 4 February 2007, http://www.sleid.cqu.edu.au/viewissue.php?id=5
‹ ‹ ‹ ‹
website address (URL) volume issue date viewed
In case the above arrows 'move' with different screen sizes, the following list provides the same information:
Author =Kennedy, I
Year of publication = 2004
Article title = ‘An assessment strategy to help forestall plagiarism problems'
Journal title = Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development
Volume = vol. 1
Issue = no. 1
Date viewed = viewed 4 February 2007 (Remember, because it is a website you need to indicate the date you viewed the document.)
Website address(URL)= http://www.sleid.cqu.edu.au/viewissue.php?id=5
You should also pay attention to the punctuation used, the abbreviations (eg,"no." for"issue")and the use of capital letters and italics as presented in the above example.
Compass: Library Help Online
In order to locate reading list resources, you must firstly identify the type of resource (e.g. journal article) and then search within the appropriate information source. Journal articles, for example, can be found in databases; websites may be located using a search engine such as Google Scholar.
It is also important to know that there are different types of information. Sometimes you might be required to read and use primary, secondary or tertiary information sources to complete tutorial or assessment task
The Library’s information literacy tutorial, Compass: Library Help Online, provides assistance with identifying resources in a reading list at:
http://www.library.cqu.edu.au/learning-objects/reading-list.htm
The tutorial also provides an explanation of the different types of information at:
http://www.library.cqu.edu.au/learning-objects/levels-info.htm
Note: It is necessary to be familiar with the informationabove, including the information contained within thelinks, in order to complete Information Literacy Quiz 2. You will find the quiz listed when you select the Assessment link on theleft of the course website.