It’s a popular magic device – at one flick the toys are sent back to the cupboard, the crockery arranged on the shelves, and the spells-gone-wrong are righted.
My Spells book (aka the OU Library) has introduced me to a brilliant way to marshall all those journal articles and webpages. The offputting title of ‘bibliographic management software’ hides a magic wand to collect, manage and cite* research sources.
The OU Library outlines the software options here. Some may prefer Endnote (costs money) or Refworks (costs money when you are no longer associated with the OU); I’ve started using Zotero (install the Firefox browser, install Zotero and then its word processor plugin). Now I can easily capture publication data for anything I see on-screen. And then I can go to my word processor, put the cursor in the right place, and just click for in-text references and the end References list to appear. Here’s an example of output in Harvard format:
(Hade 2002)
Hade, D., 2002. Storyselling: Are Publishers Changing the Way Children Read? Horn Book Magazine, 78(5), 509-517.
It almost makes me wish I had an essay to write.
* Note dated 21 October 2009: Oh dear I got a bit carried away here. It does ‘collect and manage’ but not ‘cite’ quite so easily. I’m sorry. It doesn’t readily provide Harvard-style citations from all webpages. The best I can suggest with Zotero for TMAs is that you use it as far as you can then edit what it has provided so that you match the examples given in our Assignment guidance, and via http://library.open.ac.uk/help/howto/citeref/index.cfm (click on the ‘Harvard’ link under ‘Step 1′).
For instance, here’s an example of what Zotero provides for a Harvard full citation, compared with our guidance:
Zotero:
Anon. Oxbridge trainee teachers ‘twice as likely to get jobs’ | Education | Education Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/aug/03/schools.uk1.
OU Library helpsheet:
MacLeod, D. (2007) ‘Oxbridge trainee teachers twice as likely to get jobs’, Education Guardian, 3rd August, [online] Available from http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2140513,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8 (Accessed 3 August 2007)
