Economics Honours Year
Tutorial
by
Aaron Tay
[email protected]
Objectives
To show you how to:
Use Library portal to access resources, services.
Search Economics databases to retrieve articles.
Obtain Economics Statistics
Use of Endnote Desktop to track citations
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the session, you will:
Know where to access resources & services from
library portal
Be able to locate relevant library materials of different
formats (books, journal articles, theses, newspapers)
Be able to search effectively Economics databases
for:
• Journal articles
• Statistical data
Table of contents
Introduction
Endnote
Search Strategy
Search Books
Search Journals
Search Newspapers
Search Theses
Search Statistical Sources
Search Internet resources
Other useful information
Sources
Quite recent cutting edge work
Articles and
Working papers
In-depth treatment
Theses
Authoritative
Recent, reactions
Books
Search
Other internet
sources
Pre-publication, interesting ideas
Newspapers
Statistical data
Quantitative data
Where to find them
Item type
Source 1
Source 2
Books
LINC/LINC+
Google books
Articles, conference paper
Databases2 such as
EconLit, Scopus, Web of
Science, Perind
LINC/LINC1+ or Infogate
Theses
LINC/LINC+
Theses databases3 such
as ProQuest Dissertations
and Theses
Newspaper articles
Factiva, Lexus-Nexus
LINC/LINC1+
Statistics
Statistical databases
such as Singstat, EIU
Country data2
Other resources
(particularly Singapore
statistics)4
Other internet sources
Mailing lists
Blogs
Source 3
Google
scholar
Microforms
Wikis,
Citeulike
1.
Only for checking if a certain source title such as journal title, database or newspaper title
is available but not for searching for article titles.
2.
Other relevant databases can be found in Economics subject guide.
3.
Other sources of thesis can be found in LION.
Endnote
EndNote Desktop
Software that stores & organizes
references
Can import references directly into a Word
document in a preferred citation style
Procedure to Install EndNote X2
Import saved citations from other
sources into EndNote X2
Insert Citations from EndNote into
Microsoft Word
Endnote Screenshot
Search Strategy
Case Study
National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG)
research grant
“Reimbursement of direct expenses incurred on
the research up to maximum of $1,000 for
Honours or equivalent degree students.”
“Cash award of $1,000 and it will be given out
each application year to the most outstanding
thesis”
More here
Potential topics
Social costs of gambling
Cost-benefit analysis of gambling industry
Impact studies of casino industry
Mechanics of searching
Use natural language
List keywords, synonyms & variant spellings
May have to refine or broaden search with
AND, OR, NOT, * , ( )
Formulate a keyword search statement
Can limit search by language, by date
Sort by relevance and times cited if available
Edit search statement and refine search again.
Mark, save, print, email, export results
Retrieve full-text if necessary
Search Strategy
Boolean operators
Truncation
Grouping using parentheses
Proximity search - e.g. “near 4”,
Keywords & Concepts
Search statements
Build your search:
Boolean operators
AND is used to indicate that both terms must be
Casino AND
present
gambling
Casino
Gambling
OR is used to indicate that either terms may be
present
Casino
casino gambling
Gambling
NOT is used to indicate that one term must not
be present
Gambling
NOT
Gambling
online
online
Build your search:
Truncation *, Round parentheses ( )
Use * for variant forms of term
Gambl* = gambling, gamblers
casino* = casinos,
Use ( ) to execute commands inside innermost
parentheses first
“social cost” and (casino or gamblers)
= social cost of casino HIT!
= social cost of gamblers HIT!
“social cost” and (casino* and gambl*)
= social cost of casinos HIT!
= Social cost of gambling HIT!
Proximity operators (advanced AND)
Proximity operators allow you to retrieve items where one search
term is within n (where n is a number) words of another.
Near Operator — finds words within x number of words from each
other, regardless of the order in which they occur.
Example: cost n2 gambling would find “cost of gambling" or
“gambling on cost" but not “The cost of very long term addiction to
gambling“
Within Operator (Wx) — finds words within x number of words from
each other, in the order they are entered in the search.
Example: cost w2 gambling would find “Cost of gambling” but not
“gambling cost”
Consistency of search operators?
And, OR, NOT, are standard symbols and can
be used in almost all databases.
This is less true of the multi-character wildcard *
! For example EconLit, use $ instead.
Use of proximity operators varies even more.
Be careful! For most databases, there is no
difference between using “AND” versus “and” ,
but a few might.
Therefore please consult specific search guide
for each database.
SAMPLE SEARCH QUERY
What are the economic impacts of
Legalized
casino gaming?
“Economic impact*” or
Cost*
Casino* or gambl*
(“Economic impact*” or Cost*) and (casino* or gambl*)
BOOKS
Searching for books
DEMO
Search using LINC, keyword search
Show expansion of search using subject
headings
Import into Endnote desktop
Look for limited previews in Google books
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Search for Journal articles
Searching article databases
Getting the full-text articles (online or print)
What to do when you can’t get the full text
article – Document Delivery Service
E - RESOURCES
E-Resources
Databases
E-Journals
E-Books
Newspapers
Exam Papers
E-Reserves
Statistical Data
Ways to access databases from
Library portal
Select E-Resources
Click on More Databases
Search under E-Resources
Comprehensive article search
Look for “pure” Economics papers – papers written from
the Economist’s point of view = EconLit, NBER Working
Papers
Supplement with closely related business and social
science databases = Social Sciences Abstracts,
ABI/Inform Complete, Business Source Premier
Further supplement with cross-disciplinary papers using
comprehensive databases = Web of Science, Scopus,
Google Scholar.
Databases (articles) we will cover
EconLit
Scopus
Web of Science
PERIND
EconLit
EconLit
Producer: The American Economic Association
Coverage: 1969 – present
Provides bibliographic references and abstracts
of journal articles, book chapters/reviews,
working papers from RePEC, some
dissertations, etc. More details.
Contains more than 350,000 records on
accounting, consumer economics,
monetary policy, labor, marketing etc.
One of the major resources for Economics ,
mostly citations, some full-text.
OvidSP Test Database
Use http://ovidsp.ovid.com to access EconLit
Basic Search
“Natural language” search, do not enter
boolean operators (And, Or, Not)
Refine/narrow search
Accessing record
Exporting results
Let’s search ECONLIT! (For advanced
ovid search and multi-field search
only)
What are the economic impacts of
Legalized
casino gaming?
“Economic impact$” or
Cost$
Casino$ or gambl$
(“Economic impact$” or Cost$) and (casino$ or gambl$)
Search tips for
EconLit
Basic Search
Natural language search
Do not enter Boolean operators, wildcards, truncation in search box
Click on “include related terms”
Apply a database limit(s) – optional
Use search aid for “narrow search”
Advanced Ovid Search
Allows for more complex and exact searches
Use Boolean operators, such as OR, AND, NOT
Use * for multi-character wildcard (truncation)
More information can be found on the “Database field guide” on the top of
the screen.
Really advanced – use indexes (see next screen)
Ovidsp Multi-field search
New interface added recently, “searcher
builder” for multi-field search
Other search options
Find Citation
Uses for searching for full details of a specific known existing article.
Search Fields
Search using specific indexes such as country, isbn, year of publication etc.
Example – In Advanced Ovid search, search using ct.singapore and casino.
See me if you want to know more.
Sliver Platter Search
To be dropped by OVIDSP, not recommended
Other generic tips
Search History
Use ‘Search History’ to combine the searches
with Boolean search operators OR and AND
Sort by score, year of publication etc
“Find citing articles”, to find articles quoting
the target article.
Scopus
Scopus
Producer: Elsevier
Coverage: 1841-1996 (17 million records) ,
1996- (16 million records)
Largest abstract and citation database covering
science, technical, medial, social science
Use this to supplement your search to go
beyond Economics for multi-disciplinary papers.
Let’s search Scopus!
What are the economic impacts of
Legalized
casino gaming?
“Economic impact*” or
Cost*
Casino* or gambl*
(“Economic impact*” or Cost*) and (casino* or gambl*)
Scopus Basic Search
Scopus results
Exporting downloading Scopus
results
Export citations to Endnote
Emailing citations
Formatting citiations
Search tips for
Scopus
Basic Search
Use Boolean operators, such as OR, AND,
NOT, also multi-character wildcard *
Default search in
“Article title, Abstract, Keywords”
Use Limit fields
Use Refine results
Combine Search History
Advanced Search
Command Line search
Not really recommended
Other features relates to citation and are
not that relevant for searching.
Web of Science
Web of Science
Producer: Thomson Scientific
Coverage: 1980Competes with Scopus
Don’t be fooled by name, includes Social
Sciences Citation Index, provides access to
multidisciplinary & scholarly journal literature of the
social sciences
author abstracts
cited references
full text articles
Web of Science
Search tips for Web of Science
- search subject words (topic), author
name(s) or affiliation, journal title,…
- requires search field tags e.g. ts=topic
- enables restricting items from your
search with “not.”
- allows for combining previous searches
Viewing search results
- click on title to view full record
- for combining search result sets
- saving search strategies for future use.
PERIND
Periodical Index to Articles
relating to Singpaore, Malaysia,
Brunei and ASEAN
PERIND
Periodical Index to articles relating to Singapore,
Malaysia, Brunei & ASEAN
Producer: NUS Libraries
Coverage, 1980Humanities, social sciences, business, medicine
architecture, building, science, law
Journal articles, book chapters & book reviews,
conference papers
Search tips
Use drop-down menu for Boolean operators & fields
Enter keywords, subject terms, phrases…
Save selected records using IE toolbar
• File> Save as> html format.
Perind Screenshot
Newspapers
E-Newspapers
Major international & local
newspapers:
New York Times, Asian Wall
Street Journal, Business
Times, The Straits Times,
more…
Access via Library portal>EResources> E-Newspapers
Two major databases
Factiva
Lexis/Nexis Academic
Note at this time, you
cannot export citations
from these two databases.
Newspapers
Press Clippings
In-house collection of articles from Straits Times and
Business Times
Articles about Singapore, Malaysia, ASEAN
Check LION under Press Clippings Collection Subject Headings List
Available from Singapore-Malaysia Collection
Microfilms
The Straits Times from 1880 -
Factiva Search vs search 2.0
Example of Factiva search
Factiva results
Materials Not Found in Library
Document Delivery Services (DDS)
Journal articles, book chapters, conference Papers
Request via E-Forms (Library Portal)
All requests must be approved by Supervisor
Free, but maximum 3 requests for Honours years
THESES
NUS Theses & Academic exercises
(PRINT)
Search LINC, by
Under Find,
By call no: HD30* and choose Theses Collection (optional)
Search LINC+, by keywords:
m soc sc Economics national university singapore
academic exercise economics national university singapore
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
(Online)
Producer: Proquest UMI
Includes over 2 million master's theses
and dissertations, with over 60,000 titles
added every year from Universities in
United States and Canada.
Provides full text access for many items.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
Search for North American Dissertations &
Theses
STATISTICAL SOURCES
Statistical Sources
Access via E-Resources>Databases>By
type>Statistical Data and Economics subject
guide
International
EIU CountryData, EIU CityData, EIU Market Demo
Indicators and Business Forecast
International Financial Statistics Demo
World development Indicators Online Intro
SourceOECD (OECD Stat) Intro
Statistics Database (World Trade Organisation)
Time series on international trade of service and commodities,
trade and tariff profiles
Statistical Sources II
Business/industry related/Finance
Global Market Information Database
(GMID) Excellent business database, draws data from IFS as well.
ISI Emerging Markets Covers 35 countries only
Frost & Sullivan IT industry related industry reports
Orbis and Osiris Specific Company related information.
Statistical Sources III
Singapore
Yearbook of statistics, Singapore (print &
web) Standard statistics reference, latest version is always online
statistics from Dept of
SingSTAT Time Series Other
Statistics- request with
Trade
supervisors permission
Statlink Singapore
Stats
Info on biggest
Singapore 1000 (CDROM) Company
S’pore companies
Statistics on Singapore : annotated
bibliography
More statistics database
Statistics basics
Select the following
Geographic coverage : Region, Country or
Country aggregate (e.g ASEAN)
Statistic series (e.g. Real GDP : US$ at
2005 prices)
Chronological coverage (e.g. 1980-2000
monthly)
EIU Country data
Producer: Economist Intelligence Unit
Geographic Coverage: 150 countries, 45 regional aggregates (e.g
ASEAN).
Chronological coverage :1980- (annual) , 1993- (monthly, quarterly).
317 series (statistic data on macro indicators – Inflation, GDP,
interest rates, trade balance of payments, demographics etc)
Includes forecasts (figures will appear in green)
Help file
Other EIU databases include
EIU MarketIndicators & Forecasts
EIU CityData
EIU Commodities
EIU Citydata
EIU marketindicators & forecasts
International Financial Statistics
Producer: IMF (Statistics Department of the
International Monetary Fund)
Geographic Coverage: More than 200 countries
and areas
Chronological coverage :1948“contains approximately 32,000 time series”
international liquidity, IMF fund accounts, money
supply etc.
Help file
IFS
Tip : Change retrieval period first, before entering other data such as country
and statistical series.
Other “all-rounders” to try
World development Indicators Online (by World Bank)
Data statistics from 1960s onwards, geographic
coverage.
World Development Indicators (WDI) database, 800
development indicators, with time series for 209
countries and 18 country groups from 1960 to 2007
SourceOECD (OECD Stat)
Currently in beta
Covers OECD countries (30 countries) plus selected
non-member economies e.g. China, India.
1960 onwards
Country statistics
Country Report Economist Intelligence Unit
Country Commerce Economist Intelligence Unit
Country Profile Datamonitor Plc
Country Review CountryWatch Incorporated
Country Monitor Global Insight Inc.
Global Competitiveness Report
World Competitiveness Report
Search for E-Resources on “Economic studies”, “Economic
Competitiveness”, “Forecast”
Country statistics
Search the site of the countries' official
body (e.g. department, ministry, bureau,
agency etc) responsible for statistics
http://www.census.gov/main/www/stat_int.html
http://isi.cbs.nl/directory.htm
List of statistical agencies
Tips for looking for statistics
If subject is topical and/or country, you can
try looking at websites of international or
regional organizations devoted to the
subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_internat
ional_organizations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intergo
vernmental_organizations
Tips for looking for statistics
Don’t neglect print! Search LINC with
subject heading . e.g China statistic
INTERNET RESOURCES
Resources on WWW
Citeulike
http://www.citeulike.org/
WWW Virtual Library Economics
http://www.helsinki.fi/WebEc/Econ
VLib.html
Blogs on Economics
http://academicblogs.org/wiki/index
.php/Economics.
OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES
Subject Guides
Good starting point for research
Library Instruction ONline
Click here
We are here…
Advisory Service at
Information Desk,
Central Library,
Level 5.
Email us:
[email protected]
[email protected]
Tel: 6516 2028 / 6516 1643
E-resource day
9 September 2008 , Central Library Forum
Participate in our Online Quiz and Treasure Hunt to win prizes
such as an Asus Eee PC, iPod Nanos, MP3 players, laptop bags,
book vouchers, flash drives, optical mice, and other great prizes!
Listen in & Learn ! Our e-resource providers will be conducting
talks throughout the day touching on the scope, coverage, and
strengths of the various e-resources.
Some of the e-resources highlighted are: Business Source
Premier, Scopus, Web of Science, Engineering Village 2,
Proquest Dissertations & Theses, SciFinder Scholar,
LexisNexis Academic and the list goes on!