Lab 3 –Searching for Literature and creating a bibliography

PURPOSE

• Practice using the UofT Library to search for academic literature
• Become familiar with RefWorks citation manager

MAIN POINTS

• An important aspect of social research is locating you work within the context of the work of others.
• While Google and Google Scholar are good for general searches, the UofT Library offers us some more effective tools to use in searching for academic literature.
• RefWorks is an effective citation management system available without charge to UofT students.

Stage 1

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Go to the University of Toronto Library website at: library.utoronto.ca
2. Under the Quick Links menu select RefWorks.
3. Create a RefWorks account.
4. Once in RefWorks create a New Folder (top left) and name it POL242.

Stage 2

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Return to the UToronto library website.
2. Click on the Article search tab (white on red at top left) .
3. Search for articles related to the dependent variable selected for your work.
4. Refine your search by clicking the box named Scholarly Journals (top left) and adjusting the Publication Date slider (bottom left).
5. Locate and open an article which helps you identify one or more possible independent variables.
6. Click on Export/Save (top right) and select RefWorks in the pull down menu.
7. Identify additional relevant articles, open and export them to RefWorks.
8. Move your citations from Last imported folder to POL242Y folder by selecting the item (on left) and going to the New Folder pull down menu (centre) and choosing POL242 as the destination folder.

Stage 3

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Once you have several citations included in RefWorks, click on the Output Style Manager button.
2. Select The Canadian Style and the American Political Science Association styles as  your favourites.
3. Click on create a bibliography and select an output style and file type.
4. When the green Completed box appears at the bottom right, select either download or email the access the bibliographic file