Off The Shelf

Have you been scouring the Internet and the library databases looking for that perfect measurement instrument for your research study? For your dissertation? How do you know if it’s a quality instrument and if it’s the right instrument for you? 

Check out this article from the January 2007 issue of gradPSYCH –

“Finding the right tools: Student researchers need to know what to look for in a measurement instrument.”

This article will outline the steps you need to complete when choosing an instrument, including:

• Knowing what you need and what you need to measure.
• Befriending your librarian
• Doing some quality control
• Getting permission

The library has access to all four of the databases mentioned in this article: Mental Measurements Yearbook, Tests in Print, PsycINFO, and Health and Psychosocial Instruments.  You can access these databases from the library’s Articles, Books, and More web page.

For more information on finding tests and measures in the Capella Library, please review  the guide Finding Tests and Survey Instruments on the library’s Guides and Tutorials page (scroll down to Resources for Doctoral Learners).

If you have any questions, please contact us in the library!

~Jennie

By now I hope you have created a RefWorks account and have begun using it to organize your research citations.

One advanced tool offered by RefWorks is called Write-N-Cite. Write-N-Cite is a plug-in for Word on both PC and Mac platforms. You can download Write-N-Cite from within your RefWorks account.

The trick currently to using Write-N-Cite is that WNC via Word will not recognize that you wish to login to your Capella RefWorks account. You have two options:

1. Use the Group Code. After clicking your Write-N-Cite toolbar button in Word, you will see a RefWorks login screen. First type the Group Code for Capella (found on RefWorks Information Page) and click “Go to Login.” Then use your normal Capella RefWorks log-in name and password.

2. Proxy Configuration: You can configure Write-N-Cite to know you are a Capella person. Find the RefWorks folder on your Programs list and click on WNC Proxy Configuration Utility. Enter this code:

http://library.capella.edu/login?url=https://www.refworks.com.library.capella.edu:2050/Refworks/?WNC=true

Which is best? With the Group Code option you have one less step. With the Proxy Configuration option you have one less “code” to remember.

You may have heard that there’s a new edition of the APA manual in the works – and it now looks like it’s done. Scheduled to hit the shelves on July 1, 2009, the 6th edition will have a few updates.

While there are no specifics about what will change, the APA website has released some information about what areas area being modified:

• new ethics guidance on such topics as determining authorship and terms of collaboration, duplicate publication, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, disguising of participants, validity of instrumentation, and making data available to others for verification;

• new journal article reporting standards to help readers report empirical research with clarity and precision;

• simplified APA heading style to make it more conducive to electronic publication;

• updated guidelines for reducing bias in language to reflect current practices and preferences, including a new section on presenting historical language that is inappropriate by present standards;

• new guidelines for reporting inferential statistics and a significantly revised table of statistical abbreviations

• new instruction on using supplemental files containing lengthy data sets and other media;

• significantly expanded content on the electronic presentation of data to help readers understand the purpose of each kind of display and choose the best match for communicating the results of the investigation, with new examples for a variety of data displays, including electrophysiological and biological data;

• consolidated information on all aspects of reference citations, with an expanded discussion of electronic sources emphasizing the role of the digital object identifier (DOI) as a reliable way to locate information; and

• expanded discussion of the publication process, including the function and process of peer review; a discussion of ethical, legal, and policy requirements in publication; and guidelines on working with the publisher while the article is in press.

For now, keep using the 5th edition along with the APA Style Guide to Electronic References.  And perhaps all our burning APA questions will be answered in July!

- Erin

If you are trying to cite electronic resources based on what you find in the APA Manual, you may have had your share of frustration. The internet has changed so quickly, and the Manual hasn’t been able to keep up with all of the online possibilities. Even with the addition of the APA Style Guide to Electronic References,
which is available on the Capella Library Guides & Tutorials page, electronic resources can be confusing.

So confusing, in fact, that you may not even know where to begin. If you’re tempted to create a citation that contains just the URL, STOP!!!

It is almost impossible for an internet resource to be both valid for scholarly research and have no citation information beyond the URL.

Scholarly resources on the internet typically mimic scholarly resources in the print world. You should see a title, author names, and a date. If it’s an internet journal, it probably has a journal volume and issue number as well.

Sometimes you’ll see useful resources that don’t have a specific person named as the author. If it’s from the government or a professional/scholarly organization, that group is probably the “author.” You may have to do some investigating to figure out exactly who is the author. Page 273 in the APA Manual has some examples that may help you understand how to cite an author when there’s no personal name.

Remember: You can search the internet quickly and easily, but determining what you can use in a paper and how to cite it often takes a bit of thought and effort.

For example, if you wanted to cite this blog post, you’d have a lot of information to include. There’s a web address (URL) and retrieval date. There’s a title for the post, a post date, and the name of the blog. Only my first name appears at the bottom of the post, but you can easily get my full name by clicking About Us. That’s exactly the type of extra work you may need to do to properly cite a web resource.

- Erin

RefWorks rolled out at the beginning of the summer, but many learners are just discovering it now.  It’s a great tool to help you stay organized and painlessly create bibliographies, but it’s not perfect and it can’t do everything.

So, if you’ve been on the fence about a RefWorks account, here are some important considerations that can help you decide.

Pros:

• Keep citation information about all of your resources in a single location.  No more lost citations.
• Access RefWorks anywhere you have an internet connection.
• Organize your citations in folders as you see fit.  Create as many or as few as you want.
• Use Write-N-Cite to create your in-text citations and bibliography – don’t let a moment of distraction turn into plagiarism.
• Link back to the full text in the database.  Save space and paper.
• Save time – let RefWorks take care of a lot of the data entry that makes bibliographise so time consuming.

Cons:

• RefWorks isn’t as smart as you are.  It’s just a computer program, so it will get some citation details wrong.  Be sure you check your bibliography before you turn it in.
• RefWorks can’t hold PDFs of articles.  You’ll have to link back to the full text in the library.
• If you have a ton of resources already, it can be tough to get them into RefWorks.  RefWorks does import EndNote records and BibTex records, but if you just have a list in Word, it’s tough to move them over en masse.
• Some databases don’t export records directly to RefWorks.  Check the library’s guide on importing into RefWorks.

 - Erin

You may have seen the RefWorks email from the library or mentions of it in this blog.  Still, many learners who came to the Dallas colloquium weren’t sure what RefWorks could do for them.

We knew there’d be a lot of questions about RefWorks, so we had a librarian devoted just to RefWorks come with us to Dallas.  We also talked about RefWorks in all the Library and Writing Center sessions.  RefWorks came up in most conversations we had with learners over the course of the colloquium.

And what is the overall impression learners have of RefWorks?  Well, learners in the Finding Scholarly Articles session loved it so much they filled the room with applause!

If you weren’t at Dallas, you may wonder what all the hoopla is about.  Here are the benefits of RefWorks in a nutshell:

Organizing your Citations

• Quickly export citations from many of the library databases.
• Organize your citations into folders – by paper, course, topic, etc.  You can even put a single citation in several folders.
• Link back to the full text in the library database.
• Add notes to individual references to help you keep track of important information.

Creating Bibliographies

• Automatically create a bibliography in APA style. (You’ll need to proof-read it.)
• Use Write-N-Cite to automatically create in-text citations and reference lists in Word.
• Share a bibliography with others by posting it to a webpage.

For more information about RefWorks, check out our RefWorks Information Page (it’s linked from the library’s Databases A-Z page as well).

-Erin

I received many questions this morning in the Library’s email box about writing and the APA format. Besides the APA Publication Manual,  the first resource I think of for these questions is Capella’s Online Writing Center.

Here is the path through iGuide: Academic > Academic Support Resources > Online Writing Center, now you can see where I came up with the title of this article.

I also point out this resource when I am talking to someone on the phone. They are often pleasantly surprised at the amount of and quality of information the site contains. 

I want to highlight two sections for you to bookmark or add to your favorites:

Need some help “distilling” the APA Publication Manual? Check out the recently revised APA Style and Formating interactive module.

Need some help with an Annotated Outline, Writing in the Third Person, or Writing a Course Paper? Check out the many helpful handouts/modules on the Writing Center’s Handouts & Modules  page.

I have reviewed and used several of these modules and handouts for my own writing and have found them very ”user-friendly” and helpful.

Can’t find what you need at the Online Writing Center? You can contact the Capella’s Writing program at: writingprogram@capella.edu  Currently there is not way to contact them by phone.

Let me know what you think about these resources, did you find anything surprising?

Robin

 When we first talked about getting RefWorks, we were asked about how RefWorks works with APA style.  It works quite nicely, in fact.  When you are ready to produce a bibliography, you can chose whatever citation style you choose.  For most of us, that style with be the most recent version of APA.  So, how do you choose the right style for your bibliography? 

Go to the Bibliography page.  Under Output Style, RefWorks has a handy category called Capella University Specific.  There you’ll see APA – American Psychological Edition, 5th Edition listed.  Just choose that and you’re on your way.

Of course, that’s not the only thing you have to do to make sure your bibliography is correct.  Have you ever heard the saying “garbage in, garbage out?”

Well, that’s especially true for bibliographic management tools.  RefWorks is fabulous, but it’s still only as good as what gets put in it.

So, when you’re using Refworks, be a conscientious user.  If you are manually entering citation information, make sure you haven’t missed any required fields.  When you produce a bibliography, check your references to make sure that they are correctly formatted.  RefWorks won’t make your APA manual obsolete, but it should help you stay organized and save a lot of time.

–Erin

If you are, you’re not alone.  Electronic resources change every day, and it’s very difficult for a citation style to keep up.  There are library databases, online journals, PDFs, HTML pages, power points, blogs, websites, newsgroups, books, podcasts, etc. That means that there may not be an “official” example of what you want to cite.  Plus, there’s not only the Electronic Media section of the APA Manual, 5th edition, but also a supplemental APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources linked from the Capella Library’s Guides and Tutorials page.

Does your head hurt yet?

So, where do you start?  First of all, remember that your citation is like a treasure map.  The information included in it helps the next researcher find that specific source.  The more information you can give, the more likely the next person will find it.  That’s why it’s so important to include things like the author (even if the author is an organization, not a particular person), date, name of the journal, title of the article or book, and retrieval information.  Retrieval information is only used for electronic resources, and will be a document number, or a date along with a database name, or a web address.  Here’s an example of a government report from the web:

Most of the electronic resources you will be using are actually library databases.  For articles from databases, there are actually three different ways you might cite them.  Which one do you use?

•  Is there a DOI (digital object identifier)?  If yes, use the example on page 7 of the Supplemental Guide.  The guide also has information about the DOI on pages 2-4. Not all databases have the DOI yet. Look on the article’s information page in the database to see if one is there.
• Is it a PDF that looks exactly like the original, paper version of the article?  If yes, you may simply have an “electronic version.”  Look at the example on page 271 of the APA manual for a citation of an electronic version.
• No DOI?  Not an “electronic version?”  Then you’ll want to look at page 279 of the APA manual for an example from a library database.

If what you have is NOT from a library database, but is still an electronic resource, then things get really exciting.  You may have to look through the examples between pages 271 and 281 in the manual and the examples in the supplement. 

Pick the examples closest to what you have, and build your citation from there.   There are an almost infinite number (okay, maybe not, but it seems that way) of possible citations, so there may not be an example of exactly what your citation should look like.  You’ll have to put on your thinking cap and make sure you get as close as possible.

However much APA citations may fell like a punishment, they’re there for a reason.  Because other people do their citations correctly, you can benefit by using those citations as part of your own research.  See our Bibliography and Cited Reference Searching guide for help with this.

Remeber, APA isn’t your enemy.  It’s just a very exacting and persnickety friend!

-Erin

Think plagiarizing can be considered an innocent mistake? These stories may cause you to think again about copying and pasting that bit from an article or website.

Plagiarizing can carry extreme repercussions both on the job and concerning a degree in progress or already granted. Plagiarism is rarely considered an innocent mistake, especially in academia and publishing where people are expected to understand the rules and respect the intellectual property of another. Excuses are usually not accepted and it can be challenging to rebuild a reputation after one is caught plagiarizing.

Romance novelist Cassie Edwards learned this the hard way. In her novel Shadow Bear Edwards lifted passages from a book about Ferrets written by Paul Tolme. Ferret references in a romance novel?!? This humorous article written by the plagiarized author discusses how Edwards worked ferrets into a conversation between Lakota Indian Shadow Bear and a pioneer woman. While Edwards claimed “she didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources” this excuse was not enough to save her publishing deal with Signet Books.

Another case of career-ending plagiarism comes from prominent newspaper, The New York Times. Journalist Jayson Blair plagiarized by fabricating details including fake quotes from interviews. The situation wounded the credibility of the New York Times and heads rolled because of it. Jayson Blair was of course fired, but two editors also resigned due to their alleged bad management that allowed this to happen. In this case plagiarism not only affected the plagiarizer, but his managers (the editors) also found themselves in hot water.

An Austrian report titled “Report on dangers and opportunities posed by large search engines, particularly Google” cites examples of people losing their jobs and revocation of degrees for plagiarizing on a thesis or dissertation. The report cites the definition of plagiarism from the software program turnitin.com, which specializes in scanning documents to find instances of plagiarism. Below is that definition as quoted in the report:

“All of the following are considered plagiarism:

• turning in someone else’s work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not”

While citing sources often feels like a pain, the pain of not crediting another’s work can be felt for years.

-Sommer