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References


References Overview

Environmental issues are so interconnected with other issues that there is often a vast array of relevant publications: no simple search on some environmental database is going to provide all the information and context a student needs to research any given issue. This means that ENVS students must learn to navigate intelligently through a huge swath of literature, searching for, saving, and applying all relevant references they can find.

In the ENVS Program, we try to make this hunt for references a bit easier in several ways:
  1. Via our Delicious resource bookmarks, we collectively share references that may be useful to others.
  2. We simplify the plethora of reference databases by directing all Delicious links when possible to our local portal of the reference super-database, L&C WorldCat.
  3. These WorldCat references can then be exported directly to RefWorks, an online bibliographic program available for free to all Lewis & Clark students, for ready incorporation into their papers.
There are already a lot of online help resources for using WorldCat and RefWorks; we'll link to some below, and won't cover general use in much detail. For our purposes, let's assume you have already learned about how to use our Delicious databases, and have located one or more references in Delicious pointing to L&C WorldCat; we'll show you below what to do next.

Exploring References in L&C WorldCat

So, you have noticed by now that many of our Delicious publication bookmarks point to L&C WorldCat; why, you may ask?
  1. WorldCat is the world's largest free online network of library content and services, allowing the user to search multiple formats: books, research articles, music, digital items, etc. It's growing to become a one-stop shopping site for publications.
  2. Lewis & Clark's Watzek Library has recently introduced a WorldCat portal to their local and online holdings.
  3. By pointing to one database versus many, students can consolidate their reference searches and readily export reference information to RefWorks.
We know that many students already have a preferred reference database, perhaps JSTOR or Google Scholar. These are all great, but each has limitations (e.g., JSTOR does not include recent scholarly articles). As you learned in our Delicious help wiki, when you find a great reference in one of these databases, please add it to Delicious, and we'll search to see if we can find the same reference in L&C WorldCat (or you can do so to help us out).

Let's assume you are interested in aquatic biodiversity in East Africa. You search our lcenvsres Delicious database for East Africa publications on biodiversity, and find several dozen. After skimming the results, you locate a promising article titled "Lake Baringo: Addressing threatened biodiversity and livelihoods," and another one titled "Ecology and systematics of mangrove crabs of the genus Perisesarma." What can you do with these references in L&C WorldCat? Here is a general help file for WorldCat, though most of its functionality is pretty intuitive so you may just want to read our recommendations below; here also are some help tutorials on the Watzek site, including some on WorldCat.

When you click on one of these bookmarks in Delicious, you may simply want to go directly to the publication; if so, click Check for Online Access at bottom right under the Lewis & Clark Libraries category. But here are some niftier possibilities:
  • We recommend that you sign in (see upper right of screen) as soon as you get to L&C WorldCat, which will allow you to build and export lists of references. If you haven't yet registered for WorldCat it's free and easy. Once you sign in, just click the Add to List link above your reference if you want to keep track of it; you'll have the option of adding to an existing list or creating a new list.
  • If you've signed in to L&C WorldCat, any other publication bookmarks in Delicious can be added to your list: just click the bookmark link in Delicious, and when directed to L&C WorldCat select Add to List as above.
  • Or you can use any of the WorldCat search features to find other publications of interest, and add relevant results to your list. Note: if you feel your publication may be of interest to other ENVS students, bookmark it in Delicious! Just click the "Bookmark & Share" link, select Delicious, then follow instructions in the Delicious help wiki.
  • Once you've assembled a list of references, you can do several cool things by clicking "My Lists" at the very bottom of the page:
    • Click on each link to retrieve the publication, add a note on each, etc.
    • This is also how you will export your references to RefWorks, using the procedure given below.

Exporting Reference Information to RefWorks

RefWorks is an online bibliography program available to all LC students that helps you store all your references in one place. Why would you want to do that?? Here are a few reasons:
  • You'll never have to go back to the library or search online again for that great reference you used in a previous class project; just look it up in your RefWorks library!
  • Many references can be automatically exported into RefWorks, including full citation information, abstracts, and keywords, giving you a great summary of each reference.
  • You'll never have to type a list of references again: RefWorks will do it automatically for you, in any style you choose.
  • You won't even have to remember which references you used in a paper; RefWorks has a nifty tool you can use to insert citation markers in your paper, and it will automatically format these in-text citations and the bibliography when you're done.
Before we continue on RefWorks, let's note that it is not your only option for managing references. While RefWorks is free to all LC students, here are a few others you may wish to consider:
  • If you regularly use Firefox, there's a free Firefox extension called Zotero that is all about organizing your references right from your browser.
  • If you have a couple extra bucks, you may want to buy an educational copy of EndNote, which is used by lots of scholars to manage their references, integrates seamlessly with Word, and is popular enough that most bibliographic databases like WorldCat have EndNote as an export option.
  • New versions of Word now boast a Citations tool in its formatting palette. The advantage is that it's built right into Word; but (a) it does not automatically import citation data from databases like WorldCat (you have to type it all in yourself), and (b) it has far fewer features, output styles, etc. than real applications like RefWorks, Zotero, and EndNote.
Okay, let's go. There are lots of ways to export references into RefWorks; see the RefWorks Help page on the L&C Library website. For general use of RefWorks, just look for all the options available under the Help tab once you've logged into RefWorks; we won't provide general help here because it's covered in classes and pretty intuitive, plus these existing online help guides give you all you need.

So, let's say you want to include the two East Africa aquatic biodiversity references noted above in a paper. First, export them from WorldCat to Refworks:
  1. Make sure you are logged into L&C WorldCat and have saved your references in a list. Then click My Lists at the very bottom of the page.
  2. Now select your list, and click on the Citations View tab. Check your publications of interest, then next to Export Selected References select To RefWorks, then click the Export button and you will be prompted to login to RefWorks if you haven't done so already. (If you've never logged in to RefWorks you can register for free.)
  3. Your new references imported to RefWorks may be viewed in the Last Imported folder (Folders > View > Last Imported). You may want to create a new folder (Folders > Create New Folder) to store these references: just check the box next to each desired reference, then use the Put in Folder dropdown menu to copy them to your new folder.
Now that you have these references in their own folder in RefWorks, you are ready to use them! You can quickly compile a bibliography:
  1. Check the box next to the references you want to use, then click Add to My List.
  2. Click the Bibliography tab at top. In the Bibliography window, you'll do several things:
    • Select the desired output style at top; here is a page with standard output styles at Lewis & Clark
    • Make sure Format a Bibliography from a List of References is selected
    • Under File Type to Create, make your selection (typically Word)
    • Under "References to Include," select My List
  3. Then click the Create Bibliography button at bottom and you're done!
You can do lots fancier search and export functions in RefWorks, including having RefWorks format your entire paper and bibliography automatically using Write-N-Cite. Here's information on installing Write-N-Cite for Mac and for Windows users.

A final pointer: do you want to share your RefWorks bibliography with others? It's easy: in RefWorks, go to Folders > Share Folders. You'll have the option to share your entire database or selected folders. For each shared folder, you'll see a long URL (e.g., http://www.refworks.com/refshare?site=027261135929600000/RWWS5A1336124/020061232548494000); this is the URL you will post or share with friends. You can customize sharing by clicking Options; for instance, you can add your references to the LC shared area under Environmental Studies so that others can access your references from within RefWorks by going to View > RefWorks Shared Area.

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