Finding writing support online

The writing process can sometimes be lonely for postgraduates. You might be spending more time working from home and having less contact with fellow students. Or you might feel like the only person struggling with a problem over writing methods and techniques. A supportive online community has emerged on Twitter under the hashtag #AcWri. Dr Jeremy Segrott describes how #AcWri aimed ‘to bring together people who were engaged in academic writing to discuss some of key challenges, techniques/strategies that can help get published, and to generally provide a forum and way of connecting people engaged in the common - yet often fairly isolated business of writing for publication.’ #AcWri is the legacy of the #AcBoWriMo community which was initiated last November by Dr Charlotte Frost. #AcBoWriMo stood for ‘Academic book writing month’, but it was adopted by postgraduate students and academics engaged in all types of writing: journal articles, thesis chapters, and research proposals.

I found #AcWri helped with my motivation as my own thesis deadline loomed. Stating my daily goals for writing and editing helped to organise my thoughts and it was always reassuring to know others were in the same boat.

You can find more discussion of the original #AcBoWriMo initiative at PhD2Published. There’s also plenty of writing tips and techniques on The Thesis Whisperer.

#AcWri live chats take place every Thursday at 6pm (GMT). More information on the community and summaries of past discussions can be found here and here.

The hashtag in use on Twitter

How to use SNL for financial research

Following the successful demonstration of Mergent Online , we have another database for you this week: SNL . SNL is a global financial database providing news, macroeconomic data and financials and analytics of banks and insurance companies. It replaces Bankscope, the database we previously used for this area. The data in SNL would be of interest for anyone researching finance, banking or insurance. There will be two demonstrations of the new database SNL on Wednesday 22 nd February Session 1: 12.00 – 1.00 University Library IT Room 1 Session 2: 1.30 - 2.30.University Library IT Room 1 There is an opportunity to do some hands-on practice in these sessions as well receiving tailored support. If you would like to attend please contact Andrew Dunn with your details and any training requests. For more information on how to use and register for SNL follow this link: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/fi...

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar

You can now export multiple citations from Google Scholar if you have a Google Account. Go to Google Scholar and sign into your Google Account. Conduct your search. Click on the Star icon (Save) under each reference you want to export. Then click on My Library in the top, right of the screen. Select all the references and click on the Export option: Click the Star/Save Icon Choose Export Option To Export into EndNote Choose the EndNote option. Open the EndNote file that is created. The references should automatically import into EndNote. To Export into RefWorks Choose the RefMan option. Save the RIS file that is created. Login to your RefWorks account. Click on the plus (+) button. Choose Import References. Add the RIS file you just saved. Set the file import option to RIS - Reference Manager. Click import and your references will be imported. --- Good Practice Tip: Always check that all the reference information you need has been...

Search Tips: Phrase Searching and Proximity Searching

Phrase searching Normally when you put two words into a database search it will find those two words anywhere in the title/abstract/keywords: It will do an AND search = diabetes AND mellitus If you want to force the database to do a phrase search then enclose it in “speech marks” “diabetes mellitus” = those words next to each other, in that order Most of the main literature databases we subscribe to at the University of Leicester support phrase searching using speech marks, as do the search engines Google and Google Scholar. However, Scopus treats phrases in "speech marks" as loose phrases, so to do an exact phrase search in Scopus use {curly brackets} around the phrase instead. Extra Tip: Make sure when typing in speech marks that you use the double speech mark symbol " rather than typing in two apostrophes. Proximity (Adjacency) Searching Finds one keyword within a specified number of words of the other, in any order: Diabetes ADJ4 “Type 2” = will find Diabetes withi...

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