Creating Bibliographies for Online Journals using Office 2007 Research Tools

Today's hint: Creating Bibliographies for Online journals

I've now used the Office 2007 Research tools to complete a 50-page paper, and I can honestly say that using this tool for matching citations to bibliographies has been much easier than the way we've been doing it for years. Best of all, these tools are free.

I've discovered a few tricks that help make the generated bibliographies fit true APA-style, and I'll add them here as I remember them.

For online journals, the "Journals" menu doesn't contain a spot for the required online documentation. However, it is easily added in the Page Numbers box. Simply type your "Retrieved (date) from . . . " information behind the page numbers. Your online location information is perfectly placed in your bibliography.

• Use the "Show All Bibliography Field" to insert a volume and issue number for your journal, and here is your result:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• APA Style Guide 5th edition notes that if a resource is located in a searchable data base (like EBSCO or ProQuest), you can simply write: Retrieved (date) from EBSCO database.

• Other online resources are written as: Retrieved (date) from (http://url).

• However, APA has issued an update to their 5th edition called APA Documenting Electronic Sources. This document outlines the use of a doi (digital object identifier). It is used to replace the "Retrieved" section. If your journal article has been issued a doi, you will see it on the database retrieval page. To use a doi, insert it after the page numbers like this: doi:(copy number here). No other information is necessary.
  

• Finally the APA Update on Electronic Resources now does not recommend simply listing the database. It recommends using a URL, which is contradictory to the APA 5th edition style guide. What to do, what to do? :-)
  

Tools for Organizing: Google Desktop

Google Desktop is a gadget that allows you to search your computer's hard drives and any external devices (like flash drives) for key words, just as you do when you search the Web.

In addition to your files, Desktop will search your email, your chats, and even any web pages you've viewed that contain your search term. It will also organize them by category, allowing you faster access to the information you are seeking.

Desktop actually takes a complete inventory of your computer (called indexing). Because it created snapshots of your files to cache copies of them, you can sometimes retrieve an accidentally deleted document!

A word of caution: If your computer is running very slowly, don't install this gadget--it will only run slower! I also recommend only the Desktop search, not the extra Google Gadgets.

More information can be found on the Getting Started pages for Google Desktop.

Tools for Research: Google Notebook

Google Notebook provides you with the ability to bookmark sites and add personal notes with one click, organize them into folders with subheadings, and tag your bookmarks. Best of all, your Notebook is available from any online computer.

It's easy to enroll--Just sign in to the Google Notebook homepage with your Google Accounts username and password. As soon as you restart your browser, you'll see a Google Notebook icon in the bottom-right corner of your browser window. Click on this icon to open your mini Google Notebook, where you can save all the clips of content you want.

When you are using the Google search engine, look for the words "Note This." Clicking that link will open Google's Notebook gadget in the lower-right corner with options to categorize your link.

Google Notebook can be accessed at anytime at www.google.com/notebook.

If you like this gadget, download the Notebook browser extension, too, which allows you to use the mini Google Notebook and prevents you from toggling between windows. As soon as you restart your browser, you'll see a Google Notebook icon in the bottom-right corner of your browser window. Click it to open your mini Google Notebook.

The Notebook Help page is located at http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/faq.html and is the source for some of this information.