Physics

How do I..?

• Start my research
• Find the information I need
• Evaluate what I have found
• Organise my information
• Reference correctly and avoid plagiarism

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Starting your research

You have been given your assignment question and now you are ready to start searching for information, right? Wrong!

Before you begin searching for information you need to think about your assignment topic

 WHY?

• Analysing the topic will help you focus your search
• It encourages you to think about issues around the topic
• It will help you to keep your time spent searching to a minimum

If you have a clear idea of what information you are looking for, then the process of finding and evaluating that information becomes much easier.

Thinking about the concepts or keywords within the topic gives you a good basis on which to build your search strategy.

FOR EXAMPLE

Here is a sample assignment question you might come across in this programme

 

By determining what the key concepts and keywords are before you begin searching for information your search should become much easier and the time spent searching much reduced.  

This is what the key concepts and keywords might be for this example:

 

To transfer these words into a search strategy you need to have a few alternatives  

Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3
gas	gas compression	adiabatical compression
temperature	heat
air	atmosphere
energy	heat

   

These phrases and words will now become the basis of your searching strategy across the resources provided by the Library for your course.

  

 

 

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Finding the information you need

Information comes in very different formats these days and as tertiary students, you are expected to use a wide variety of information sources to support your arguments in assignments, and as a general basis for your understanding of the subject area.

This section of the guide will cover the main sources of information and how to find them.

• Dictionaries/encyclopaedias/handbooks
• Books
• Journals and journal articles
• Internet resources

By using the concepts and keywords we have already developed, you will see how useful they are in finding the relevant information.

 

Dictionaries, Encyclopaedia and Handbooks

Learning about a new subject area can be daunting but resources exist that give you a general overview of your topic or terminology. Subject specific dictionaries and encyclopaedia exist for just this reason.

 

An example of some of these types of resources are:

 

Title	Call number
A Dictionary of Physics	530.03  8/2000
Dictionary of Pure and Applied Physics	530.03 10
The Cassell Dictionary of Physics	530.03 9
The Cambridge Handbook of Physics Formula	530.0212 5
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics	540.212 9/1996

 

 

 

To locate these resources and others like them you can search the library catalogue. Using a title search we can look for any of these books e.g.

 

 

 

 

Books

 

To locate books on your topic, try a keyword search of the library catalogue.

Using the specific keywords you have identified from your assignment topic will help to make your searches more efficient.

If you wish to use phrases in your search (for example: applied physics, quantum physics) enter your terms in a single textbox with " " around the terms:

 

 

 

Hint: Subject headings are official terms assigned to an item when it is catalogued, so that all items on the same topic can be grouped together under a common heading in the catalogue. Check the of relevant titles from your search - these headings will link you to other items on the topic.
 

From the "Complete record" link in your results list......

 

 

 

 

......you can find the Subject Headings associated with this item.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journals and journal articles

 

Journals are also known as serials or periodicals. Because they usually focus on a very specific area of interest or research, journal articles can often provide more in-depth information than books. They also offer the latest published research in a particular field. The library subscribes to a range of journals relevant to physics, many of which are available electronically (online).

Basically the library has access to articles in journals in 3 ways

1. in print, sitting on library shelves at the campus libraries

2. through electronic subscriptions via the publisher of the journal e.g. Kluwer, Wiley, Springer and Elsevier(ScienceDirect). Check out this access via the Library's eJournals page

3. via the multitude of journal databases we subscribe to e.g. Proquest, EiCompendex, etc. where some articles are available full-text but not all.

To check if the library holds a particular journal, check both the library catalogue and the eJournals list (the latter lists all journals available online: it is amended frequently, so it's a good idea to check here as well as the catalogue).

There are also an increasing number of full-text electronic journals freely available on the web, like the Physics World

Databases for finding journal articles:

Electronic journal databases are used to find journal articles. Journal articles are a good source of current information and enable you to keep up to date with trends and developments in your area.

Looking through individual journals in the hope of finding relevant material is time-consuming. It is better to use the databases to find articles on your topic.

For databases specifically related to engineering and physics please go to:

Databases & Resources by Subject: Physics

When the entire article (full-text) is not provided by a database, it will be necessary to perform a Journal Title Search on the CQU Library Catalogue to determine if we hold the print publication. Be aware that journals and magazines are also called 'serials' and 'periodicals' in the CQU Library, and that 'S' in front of a call number indicates a serial.

If a journal article is available in print at the Rockhampton campus and is not available electronically, distance students and students on other campuses can request to have a copy of the article sent to them.

 

 

Internet Resources

A large amount of information of interest to the Physics area is available on the Internet. However, it is important to realise that this information should supplement other sources of information. Popular search engines, though useful, index only a small proportion of electronic information.

 

An excellent starting point for Engineering information is:

Google Scholar

 

ViFaTech: Engineering Subject Gateway

EEVL: the internet guide to engineering, mathematics and computing

The Australasian Virtual Engineering Library (AVEL), information portal to quality Australasian engineering & information technology (IT) resources



Other useful sites include:

 

Australian Institute of Physics

American Institute of Physics

Institute of Physics (UK)

American Physical Society

Yahoo Physics Directory

WWW Virtual Library : Physics

Physical Reference Data

Physics e-Print archive

Help for Physics Students

Nobel Prize Winners

 

 

 

 

 

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Organising your information

"Information overload" is a common term used to describe that terrible feeling you get when you have so much information you don't know where to begin.

To help ease this pressure there are a number of things you can do.

1. Plan your search strategy - know what your keywords are, use them in your searching, keep a track of how successful they are (the number of results they return), keep a note of new terms you find along the way.

2. When you find some useful information make sure you can find it again - print it out, save it to disk, photocopy it or make notes from it BUT most importantly keep an accurate record of all the bibliographic details that relate to that piece of information

• author
• title
• publisher
• place of publication
• date of publication
• page numbers
• if it is a website, the URL (web address)

3. Organise your information so you can find what you need when you need it.

There are many ways of organising your information; some people just keep piles of paper and books on their floor, others make copious notes and others try to use a database system. One very effective way of organising your information is by using an electronic bibliographic tool called Endnote.

To find out more about this product, how to get it and how to use it , use this link.