CIVE 432 - Technical Paper

• Library workshop documentation
• Useful reference sources
• Finding books
• Finding journal articles
• Obtaining materials that are not available at McGill
• Writing and referencing your paper

Library workshop documentation

• Researching and Citing for your Technical Paper
  (workshop slides for CIVE 432 - Sept. 2013)
• "Researching and Citing for your Technical Paper" Research Toolkit (handout)
• Checklist for Reading and Thinking Critically about Research Articles (handout)

Useful reference sources

General

Environmental engineering

Geotechnical engineering

Hydraulic and water resources engineering

Structural engineering

Transportation engineering

Finding books

Suggested subjects to search in the library catalogue:

You can replicate these results by going to the Advanced Search and typing words into the Subject field.

To refine any of these searches, type additional words into your search.

Finding journal articles

Useful databases for finding journal articles:

• Compendex – for all aspects of engineering
• Web of Science – multidisciplinary
• Scopus – multidisciplinary
• Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management – includes environmental engineering, energy resources, waste management, and water resource issues
• Applied Science and Technology Full Text – intended for undergraduate students
• Environmental Engineering Abstracts – covers technological and engineering aspects of air and water quality, environmental safety, and energy production
• Transport – covers transportation research information on all surface transportation modes, air transport, and highway safety
• Water Resources Abstracts – covers the world's literature of water-related topics including the characteristics, conservation, control, pollution, treatment, use and management of water resources

How to find articles using keyword searching in databases:

Sample search: biodiesel fuel AND energy source in Scopus

Ways to decrease results

• Search words as a phrase

  e.g. "biodiesel fuel" AND "energy source"

• Combine additional terms with AND to generate fewer results

  e.g. "biodiesel fuel" AND "energy source" AND soybean

• Select one of the database's limit types

  e.g. publication type, language, publication date

• Search for words only in a particular field

  e.g. biodiesel AND energy in article title only

Ways to increase results

• Search using fewer terms

  e.g. biodiesel AND energy

• Use truncation to allow the terms to end in various ways

  e.g. biodiesel AND soybean*

• Use synonyms or similar concepts, combining them with OR to generate more results

  e.g. (biodiesel OR biofuel) AND (energy OR heating)

Get new ideas for search terms

• Use descriptors in the database if they are available (also called subjects, controlled vocabulary or controlled terms)

Obtaining materials that are not available at McGill

McGill students and staff may order articles and books not available at McGill using COLOMBO (interlibrary loan).

There are no charges for ordering through COLOMBO; McGill subsidizes these services.

Please do not wait until it is too late for us to help you with COLOMBO.

Writing and referencing your paper

Consult these resources for tips on how to write a research paper. Click on the call number to find out where the book is located.

Writing Tools

• For tools to help with writing, click here.
• Also, try the McGill Writing Centre.

EndNote

• You can download EndNote citation management software for free. With this software you can get references directly from many databases, such as Web of Science.
• EndNote can automate the formatting of your references in ACS (American Chemical Society) style. A custom output style (CIVE 432.ens) has been made for this course:
  
  EndNote output style file For Windows: Open the zip file and save the .ens file in C:\Program files\EndNote\Styles.
  For Macs: Open the zip file and save the .ens file in Applications:EndNote:Styles.
• Please note, use Firefox as your browser for best results when using EndNote on a Mac.
• EndNote Web is now available at McGill University. To access EndNote Web you need to create a personal account. You may sign up for an account with your McGill email address at www.myendnoteweb.com.
• There are library workshops given on how to use this software effectively.
• Detailed step-by-step Guide to Using EndNote (.pdf)