Secondary referencing

I’ve been getting loads of queries about secondary referencing recently; this is where you want to reference something that the book or journal article you are reading has referenced…so you’ve not read the original source, you’ve found it quoted or paraphrased in something else, but it’s really useful or relevant so you still want to use it.

We’ve got guidance on how to do this on our referencing webpages. However, it’s not considered good academic practice to do lots of secondary referencing in a piece of work. Ideally you should be going to the reference list at the end of the book or article you’re reading, working out what the original source is, then tracking it down, reading it yourself, and then referencing that, not the item in which it is referenced. There may of course be times when you cannot locate the original source – maybe because it’s out of print, or we don’t have a copy and you can't get hold of one elsewhere – in which case it is OK to use secondary referencing. Try not to do too much of it though; your work should reflect your ability to locate appropriate sources and to compare and apply arguments yourself.

If you want any help with tracking down original sources, finding things for your work, or referencing, come into the Library and ask, or send me an email.

Roy Hodgson describes himself as "naive" about gay footballers

This popped up on Twitter a little while ago: the England football manager Roy Hodgson gave a talk at the Cambridge Union recently and apparently blustered a bit on a question about LGBT footballers, saying he believed he had not encountered any. Full story here.

If this is a topic that interests you then you'll find lots of journal articles in DISCOVER; remember to think of synonyms (alternative words or phrases) too as there are many different terms for gay and LGBT, and football is of course known as soccer elsewhere.

You might also want to try Newsbank to find newspaper articles from local and national newspapers; this can give you a great overview of public opinion and how it changes; for example, the years in which there were the most newspaper articles written on your topic.

And if you're not sure how to reference any of this, have a look at our referencing guides online.

How do I know what to read??

First off, I'd like to start with a big welcome; welcome to those of you who have just joined the University, and welcome back to our returning students. I hope you all had a fab summer (it seems a distant memory now I know!) and are settling into the new term well. I've just finished the round of inductions where it was lovely to meet the new students in the department; please do get in touch if I can help.

Those of you who've been to sessions I've delivered will have heard me talking about how much information there is out there; how many journal articles there are in DISCOVER and how important it is to be able to wade through it all effectively. You've been told that at university you're expected to read, read, read...but with so much to choose from, and so many different types of material, it can be hard to work out what you should be reading, whether you're new to university study, or a student progressing through your course with new expectations being placed on you as you reach the next level.

Your starting point is the reading lists for your units; each unit has a list of expected and suggested reading set out by your tutor, where they clearly explain what it is that you have to read for the unit, and what you could read to expand your knowledge (and potentially get better marks!). This year the lists can all be found online - go into the BREO unit and click on the "Reading Lists" tab on the left-hand side - and you can click directly through to ebooks, online journal articles, and other online material, or find out quickly where in the library you can locate print material.

But as I've hinted already, studying at university is about reading around your subject; going beyond what you have to read to develop your knowledge, and to provide alternative arguments and viewpoints. This is going to reflect well in your work, but you'll be wanting to do this anyway - you chose to study your subject because you enjoy it and you're interested in it, right? As I said above, your reading list may contain suggestions for independent reading, but you can explore further and go ahead and find your own material through the Library Catalogue (for books and ebooks) and DISCOVER (for journal articles, magazine and news articles, and other things). And there are more options beyond those; come and ask at the desk for help, send me an email, or keep an eye out on the What's On? calendar for workshops we'll be running later on in the year.

Happy reading!

Sport in South America

Routledge are celebrating the World Cup by putting together a little collection of resources about sport and tourism in South America (not just football). There are a couple of introductory essays by experts in the field, and they have temporarily made available for free some journal articles on the subject. These articles will be available on an open-access basis until 31st July, and then after that you won't be able to access them if they're not from journals we subscribe to, so do read and make your notes now if any of them are useful (don't forget to note full details and page numbers for your citations!).

I think I've given up on England, but I do have Colombia in the office sweepstake...

"The World Cup of Everything Else"

Well the day is finally here, and my colleague Hilary has found a brilliant infographic that ranks the World Cup finalists by economic and social statistics. Some of it surprised me; check it out over on the Education librarians' blog.

The 2014 World Cup is nearly here...

I started getting excited about the World Cup yesterday when I spotted this feature in the Guardian Travel section on unusual or just stunning football pitches around the world - I especially love the one on top of the department store in Tokyo and the one up a Swiss mountain (though what a pain if the ball goes over!).

The Guardian has loads of stuff about the forthcoming tournament on their sports pages and they're now running a "live countdown" too.

If any of you are working with children at the moment, there are loads of free teaching resources about the World Cup floating around online - have a look at the offerings from the TES and the National Literacy Trust.

And if you're interested in doing some reading around the tournament then you will find loads of journal articles in DISCOVER, covering all sorts of topics, from injury to sociological and economic themes. Remember to think about narrowing down your search terms to make the amount of information you find more manageable, and this is a good example of where thinking of synonyms (alternative words to describe something) is important; you'll probably want to try "soccer" as well as "football". 

Happy World Cup 2014!

How do I know if this research is any good?

Every so often a student comes to see me to ask about how they can evaluate whether a research article they want to use is any good - what are they looking for, and how do they assess the validity of the methodology and the results? If you've found the article in an academic journal then you can make some assumptions that the authors know what they are talking about, but that doesn't mean that the research is flawless, or that the authors don't have something they are wanting to prove. So, as you progress into doing your own research, you will be starting to critically appraise what is already out there. A student came to see me yesterday about assessing the statistical validity of an article and we found this book which looks like it could be really useful for helping you with this kind of thing: How to read a paper: the basics of evidence-based medicine by Trisha Greenhalgh. It's aimed at healthcare practitioners but contains plenty that is relevant to you too; I thought that the chapters on "what is this paper about?", "assessing methodological quality" and "statistics for the non-statisitician", along with the checklists at the end, would be worth a look. It's available as an ebook too so you can read it from the comfort of your sofa/bed/coffee shop.

As ever, do get in touch if you want to discuss further.