Posts tagged wr214

Everyone knows that images can make a paper or presentation more visually appealing and more effective.  But images, just like other types of sources, should be used ethically, with respect to the person who created them.

This is especially important when you are giving presentations that might end up on video, or posted to the web.  Luckily, it is easy to find images you can use with no worries.

Creative Commons is a project that allows authors, photographers, artists, musicians -- any kind of content creators -- to put a license on their work that tells everyone else exactly how they can use it.

Here's an explanation of all of the different licenses that are available.

Here's how you can use the online photo-sharing site Flickr to search for images with Creative Commons licenses that give you permission to do exactly what you need to do with that image.

Go to the advanced search page at Flickr:

Enter some keywords to find the image you want.  Be creative!  People tag these photos with all kinds of terms - names, colors, cameras, photographic techniques, locations, time periods, and more.

At the bottom of the page, you will see an section labeled Creative Commons.

Checking the box marked Only Search within Creative Commons-licensed content will make sure that all of the photos you find have licenses that say you can use them.  Most of the time, they will ask that you will simply provide attributution (provide a link/ citation crediting the photographer).

Checking the box marked Find content to modify means that you can not only use, but also change (photoshopping, cropping, adding text or captions, etc.) the photos you find.  Check this box if you plan to change the image in any way.

Here's an example of a photo with a Creative Commons license.

[Photo credit:  Oregon State Football Game, Upset #1 USC. Ryan Harvey]

The license is highlighted on the image above with a pink star.  Clicking that link will tell you everything you need to know about what you have permission to do with the image:

Good luck!

So you are searching in an article database, and you find the abstract for an article you want, but the full article is nowhere to be found?  Don't get frustrated!  If the OSU Libraries have the article anywhere, you can frequently find it with just a couple of clicks.

Here's a sample set of search results from Academic Search Premier.  I'm using this as an example, but the basic set of tips here will work in all kinds of article databases, not just EBSCOhost databases.

The third result on that list (marked with a green arrow in the image above) has the full-text available.  For any article with a link that says Full Text, or PDF Full Text, or just PDF, or HTML Full Text (or similar) - you're done.

The other two results, though (marked with pink arrows) don't have that full-text link.  For these articles, you want to click the link marked with the little green circle - 360 Link to Full Text.  This link lets you search for the article in the library's other databases and online subscriptions.

Here's what you will see if you click on the 360 Link to Full Text button for the first article in the example search above:

You are now looking at the page for that article in a different database.  The pink arrow is pointing at the full-text link (just labeled PDF in this database).

After you click the 360 Link to Full Text link, the next screen will not always look the same, depending on where it finds your article.  For example, here's another example.

This article is in the ScienceDirect database, and the full text link is in a tab at the top of the article page.

Unfortunately, the button's not magic, and it can only find articles that the library has access to.  If we do not have a digital subscription to the source you're looking for, you'll see a page that looks like this.  At this point, you can click the link provided to seach the OSU Library Catalog to see if we have a print (hard copy) subscription:

If we do not have the article you want, we can get it for you from another library.  We will always do everything we can to get OSU students, staff and faculty anything they need to be successful in their classes and research at OSU.

Go to the library homepage at http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu (if you click the link now, it'll open in a new window).

Choose Databases from the Quicklinks.

Use the A-Z list (the pink area in the picture below) at the top of the Databases page to go to the L's.

Choose Lexis-Nexis Academic from the list.  The general Lexis-Nexis screen will let you search for company information, but if you go to the Business tab at the top of the page, you will get the same information packaged for you in a much more useful way.

On the Business search page, look for your company by its name.  If it is a public company, you can also search using the (stock) ticker symbol.

This page at Yahoo Finance will let you look up ticker symbols easily --

http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup

There's a snapshot of information on the main page.  The links in the shaded green area below will let you search for news information, patent information (under Intellectual Property), legal information and more about your company.

You can find information on more than just big, publicly-held companies in here too.  Limit your search to a particular city or state, and search by company name, and you will find more local information about companies you might want to work for, or compete with.

If you have questions, you can contact me (anne-marie.deitering AT oregonstate DOT edu), or leave a comment.

So the other day I was working on a research question, and I was trying to find an article that I know is out there - I know I saw it while I was working on this project.  And I tried and tried to remember the search terms that I used that other time so that I could find it again.

Everyone knows to save their work, right?  (Even if we don't do it as often as we should).  But have you ever thought of saving your research work - saving the stuff you find, and even the searches that you do?  The EBSCOhost databases at the library let you save your work online.  This can be a huge time-saver if you:

Regularly work on more than one computer.

Want a safe backup for your work in case something goes wrong.

Are working with a group of people on the same research project.

Here's how:

Go to the library homepage at http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu (if you click this link now it will open in a new window).

These steps will work in any database that we get from the company EBSCOhost. If you're not sure where to start, Academic Search Premier is a good starting point for most searches.

Click the link at the very top of the page marked Sign In to My EBSCOhost --

The first time you will need to register with EBSCOhost to create your account.  The link to do this is kind of hard to see --

Create your username and password, and then you're good to go.  You save things to your My EBSCOhost folder the same way that you save things to a temporary folder. Once you have things in your folder, they will stay there until you delete them.

And now when you log on, your folder has items even before you do any searches -

You can create folders within your big folder - save things by topic, or by project name, or by class number, or anything that makes sense to you.

Play around with what you can do here - you can save your searches and more.

If you have any questions, contact me (anne-marie.deitering AT oregonstate DOT edu).

Go to the library homepage at http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu (if you click the link now, it'll open in a new window).

Choose Databases from the Quicklinks.

This trick will work with any database that we get from the company, EBSCOhost.  (If you're not sure which one to use, Academic Search Premier is a good starting point).

If you're off-campus, or using a wireless connection, you might get asked to log in with your ONID when you click on the database.  Once you do that, you should be good to go for your whole research session.

Do some searches and find some articles that you might want to use for your project.  Once you have some articles, there are two ways that you can use the database to get a head start on your works cited list.

FIRST WAY -

Email the articles that you want to keep to yourself.  This is a good way to go if you are not ready to start writing yet.

Let's say that we want to keep the third article on this list - click on the title of the article, Factors Influencing the Scope and Quality of Science and Management Decisions.  You'll get a screen like this --

At the top right, there are a row of icons.  The email one is pretty obvious - the little envelope.  When you click that icon, you get this screen --

Pull down the dropdown menu under Citation Format.  Choose the style you need to use for your paper or project.  When you get the article in your email, the citation information will be formatted for you and you can cut and paste it into your works cited list.

SECOND WAY

You don't have to email articles to get the citation information formatted for you.  This method works if you are in the process of writing your paper and you just want to grab something for your works cited list or bibliography.

Let's go back to that article record -

This time, choose the fourth icon from the left, that looks like a little page (the one without the arrow).  When you mouse over it, it will say Cite this Article.  Click that icon, and the database will create a page with lots of citation options:

Choose the style you want, and cut and paste the citation into your paper.

A WORD OF CAUTION - Sometimes, the citation you get will not be perfect.  Tweak any mistakes (like a title or author in all-caps) before you hand in your paper.

ALSO, if you are using the MLA format, you need to add some information yourself:

Where the labels Library Name, City and State Abbreviation are listed in brackets (the pink area in the image above) - write in information about Oregon State University Libraries and remove the brackets.

Good luck!  Questions?  Email me (anne-marie.deitering AT oregonstate DOT edu).