Sunday 4 September 2011

Thing 14: Citing stuff!

Well I've been a bit quiet since my last burst of creative juices over a week ago! Thanks for all your comments, they all help and have suggested some ideas of what I could do to get access to these resources. I'm still here, but have been reading all the blogs I subscribe too and also updating my other blog (for which I've now signed up for a challenge!), so it's certainly all go!

Like Isla and some other blogs I've read, these tools certainly weren't available to me at University. I'd have been laughing if they were. I was the sort of person who wrote it down on a scrap of paper to lose it about an hour later and then not know where the reference came from! I ended up with an address file box for my Masters, which helped no end. I think it is also helpful which form of referencing you use. At least with Harvard I could just stick the name and date in and worry about the rest at a later stage. When I first started writing long word processed reports, it was almost like using a typewriter and everything had to be planned in advance (no I'm not that old, but...)

I'm at work now and can't check out any of the free software, so I'm off to Evernote to remind me to check those at home!

I've certainly used EndNote. I previously worked for an academic library and we subscribed to that, part of my role was to demonstrate to students how it worked. I also updated the Referencing and Plagiarism section of their website, so there's very little I don't know about Harvard referencing! I think I could tell the developers if they're software is producing the bibliography in the correct format! I'm proud to say that I worked with Jo of the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries (before she came famous in the UK for her advocacy work - more in a later post methinks!) That's my claim to fame over with!

As for how I would use them. At the moment I don't have a need to use any of these tools in my work, so as Isla suggests it would be as well for me to be aware of what is out there and particularly if it's free. A job doesn't always last for life and knowledge of different software, etc goes down well on a CV!

To quote my title - this is all 'Citing stuff

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