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Are you preparing a dissertation or project, or will be doing so next academic year?

Make sure you visit our interactive dissertation and project guide. Based on the extensive experience of staff from the Library and Writing Development Centre, this guide includes an interactive search planner, which takes you through the different stages of developing your search strategy, and enables you to create and download your personalised search plan: you can even ask for feedback on it from the Library liaison team.

The search planner is complemented by a project proposal planner, developed by our colleagues in the Writing Development Centre, to help you develop or refine your research proposal.

The guide also points you to further advice on a wide range of relevant skills, to give you advanced knowhow in finding, managing and evaluating information. For example: where to find specialised information resources for your subject area, and methods to keep your literature search up to date over a long period.

It’s easy to navigate, with clear text and short videos throughout. Whether you are already underway with your dissertation, or just starting to think about it, we’re sure you will find it helpful!

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Trial to IBISWorld

We are currently running a trial to IBISWorld which is a platform offering industry market research and industry risk ratings. This includes statistics, analysis and forecasts.

Enter you keywords in the search box and then from the results list use the left hand options to narrow your search. e.g narrowing down by geography/country.

Once you selected a report to view; again use the left hand option to navigate to specific sections e.g. chapters on the industry, key statistics, major companies etc.

You can also navigate by choosing the Country and then the sector. So for the UK you see these options :

Look for the download icons so you can export reports and tables in different formats e.g. Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel.

We hope you’ll find the layout and navigate straightforward, if not click on the ? icon in the top right within IBISWorld for additional help.

This trial includes access to:
Australia
• Industry Reports (ANZSIC)
• Specialized Industry Reports
China
• Industry Reports
Global
• Global Industry Reports
United Kingdom
• Industry Reports (UK SIC)
• Specialized Industry Reports
United States
• Industry Reports (NAICS)
• Specialized Industry Reports
Canada
• Industry Reports (NAICS)
Germany
• Industry Reports (DE-WZ)
Ireland
• Industry Reports (NACE)
New Zealand
• Industry Reports (ANZSIC)

You can now download reports, charts, graphs, data tables and more in a variety of formats including Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel.

You’ll find some useful information for completing SWOT, PESTLE and Porters Five Forces together with industry information.

As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

Access IBISWorld via the trial via this link, you will need to be on campus or accessing via RAS as the platform is using IP authentication.

The trial is running from the 8th of February to the 20th of March 2020.

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Kick-off your information search

Preparing a dissertation or project?

Before you start, take a look at our interactive Search Planner, part of our Dissertations and research projects guide.

This toolkit takes you through all the stages of developing your search strategy. Step by step, the planner helps you take a closer look at your question, to identify important concepts, themes and keywords. You can keep adding, editing and refining this as you go, and even create and download your own personalised search plan and email it to yourself, your tutor or librarian for feedback

The guide contains further advice on a wide range of relevant skills, such as finding, managing and evaluating information. It also directs you to the key information resources for your subject area. So make sure you check it out.

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Resource on Trial: Global Consumer Survey

The Statista Global Consumer Survey offers a global perspective on consumption and media usage, covering the offline and online world of the consumer. It is designed to help marketers, planners and product managers understand consumer behavior and consumer interactions with brands.

This resource covers more than 50 industries and topics and includes a tool which allows you to analyse data from different topics and customise them.

To access this resource, click on the link here.

For guidance on how to use it effectively, please see the online tutorial here.

The trial is available until 3rd May 2020. As always, your feedback will be very welcome: you can either email it, or leave a comment on this blogpost.

If you are off-campus, please login to RAS first of all, and then access Global Consumer Survey from a browser within RAS.

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Journals – Don’t get lost in the darkness

Journals

The Library subscribes to a huge number of journals to assist you with your research. The majority of these are available electronically although we still have some print titles. There are some journals that are only published online with no print and may not have volumes and parts but are identified by DOIs or references numbers.

You can find journal titles by using Library Search. However if you are searching a database, you can use the Find@Newcastle University option, to link straight to Library Search to see if the journal is in stock. In Library Search records for electronic journals say Online access and when you click on them give you options to View Online.

Records for print journal give you a location and shelfmark indicating where the journal can be found.

If you read an article online then you need to reference the article as a Electronic Journal Article not a webpage.

Using the Harvard at Newcastle style a reference from an Online only Journal would look similar to this:

Chan, J.-Y. L., Wang, K.-H., Fang, C.-L. and Chen, W.-Y. (2014) ‘Fibrous papule of the face, similar to tuberous sclerosis complex-associated angiofibroma, shows activation of the mammalian target of rapamycin pathway: evidence for a novel therapeutic strategy?’, PloS one, 9(2), p. e89467.

A reference for a Print Journal would look like this:

Paton, N. (2015) ‘Night work triggers health risks’, Occupational Health, 67(9), pp. 6-6.

We also have a tool called Browzine which can help you identify journals in your subject area.

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Mintel – new interface

If you’re looking for market research related information then we’ve got a range of information sources for you. One of which is called Mintel, within our subscription we have access to trends, statistics, information on brands and companies and demographic data on a range of UK Sectors.

Mintel has recently went through some platforms changes so if you’ve used this source before you’ll see a different search screen when you access the website.

You’ll now see a search box when you can enter the word of the product, brand or sector e.g. Biscuits. Mintel tries to help you out and suggests topics for you. It also suggests names of reports which your keyword might fall into.

Within your results list, you’ll see the search banner where you can change the drop down. So you might want to only search “reports” instead of all content types. Instead of displaying your results by relevance you might want to re-sort to display the most recent results first.

On the search toolbar you can also browse in different ways :

  1. Category ; Select from pre-defined categories e.g. food, drink, retail. So this is good if you’re starting off broad or not sure which topic you’re looking. You can narrow down using the category suggestions.
  2. Trend Drivers : These are 7 different categories ranging from technology, wellbeing and experiences. These are key themes which might be important in the next 10 years. These tags feature are reports and you can search them thematically.
  3. Demographics; This section is being added to but the main ones are there e.g. gender and age.

Once you’ve located and accessed a report, you’ll find the same familiar layout. So use the drop down or content map to navigate to sections of the report.

Look out for the symbols which allow you to export sections of the report and then download them in different ways e.g. zip files.

Look out for “star” symbols so you can favourite reports to your own profile (if you’ve set one up which we recommend you do)

In the next few weeks as new help materials are released from Mintel we will update our own help pages to reflect the changes to the interface. If you’re logged into the platform click on the question mark symbol and there is a basic help PDF already available from Mintel.

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Reading Lists for Semester 2

An image of the Library's Reading List service with a wise owl.

Are you teaching in semester 2? Then it’s time to start thinking about the reading you will be recommending to your students to support their learning.

Use the Library’s Reading Lists to create, manage and update your own lists online. Or, you can send your reading list or module handout as an attachment to your Library’s Reading List team using our submission form.

Why use this service? Well, your lists will help the Library to order the correct number of copies of the titles you want to recommend, to decide on the appropriate loan periods of those printed books and enable access to electronic resources for your students. CLA scans (digitised book chapters and articles) are also easily be requested through Reading Lists too. Simply tag each item on your list as essential, recommended or background reading and we will do the rest.

Reading Lists are embedded into Canvas and you should see them in the left hand menu within each Module.

So, Reading Lists are a great way to let your students know what they need to read, and to keep the Library informed too; they are the wise choice.

You can find information about creating and managing your Reading Lists, and making resources available to your students here. And if you have any questions about this service, please do contact us at readinglists@ncl.ac.uk.

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Sustainability

We are rather proud of our new Sustainability Guide, created in collaboration with one of our quite brilliant SAgE PhD students, Georgios Pexas – actually he did all the hard work by providing all of the content!

This guide looks at Sustainability regarding the key resources available from the Library around the three main pillars of sustainability: Environment, Economy and Society. We particularly like Georgios’ opening paragraph for our guide explaining what sustainability is and its relation to these three pillars:

“As defined by the “Brundtland Commission” in 1987, sustainability is the ability to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In other words, it describes living within the limits of available natural, physical and social resources and in ways that allow our environment to thrive in perpetuity; a concept that can be summarised as: “enough, for all, forever”. Sustainability approaches the issue of resource depletion holistically, unifying Environmental, Economical and Social concerns.”

The Guide also points to researchers on campus that are focusing on sustainability. It has a useful RSS feed of ‘sustainability’ in the news and invaluable links regarding careers and development in sustainability: professional associations, funding opportunities, where to look for jobs, and some upcoming events.

You will find the Sustainability Guide in the SAgE section of the Subject Guides, as it focuses on natural sciences and engineering side of sustainability, however we would love to have a section on how we as individuals can be more sustainable. We are trying to keep this Guide concise, yet useful, yet we welcome any new ideas for this guide, so please contact lorna.smith@ncl.ac.uk if you think of anything worth adding.

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Resource in Focus: Passport – looking for market research information

One of the major resources we have for students, researchers and staff within the Business School is Passport. This is particularly good if you’re looking for information on Market Research which can be anything from consumer preferences and buying habits, companies and their products and market share.

We’ve got a great Market Research guide which highlights the different products we have access to. There are also different ways to learn more about the platform such as their help guide.

Screenshot of Market Research webpage

The company who provide Passport, Euromonitor have a great YouTube channel where they upload short videos which covers information on sectors, trends and hot topics. These are created by data analysts who work closely with that sector and collate the data which feature in the reports and charts.

We think this is great way to quickly identify developing markets, flourishing segments and areas for predicted growth and trends. So if you have been asked to pick or research a growth area or identify a gap in the market to launch a new and viable product you might to browse through their channel.

If you click to display by videos and ensure you’ve got them displayed by newest first you’ll see some trends videos so for 2020 so you’ll get a good idea of consumer trends, top cities to watch, industry and economic trends.

Euromonitor have also curated their videos under a section on their channel called “playlists” So if you’ve been asked to look at a specific market you might want to browse through playlists and see what videos they have.

They are short, snappy and give you enough insight which might spark an idea or help you decide on a product or market. Watching the consumer trends video I’ve just learnt that in 2021 we will be seeking more reusable packaging, using social media to be directed to buy products, using multifunctional homes and working from home more and using our mobiles more than ever to navigate our lives.

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Advancements to searching Economist and Financial Times archives

Through our subscriptions we have access to the early versions of The Economist and The Financial Times.

The Gale platform these are hosted on have recently implemented some new features.

If you want to search across many historic newspapers at once, we would recommend using Gale Primary Sources.

So for example if you wanted to search both the Economist and the FT Archive you now can. From the Gale Primary Sources simply ensure you have only those two resources selected and then enter your keywords in the search box

You will then see your results page contains results from both resources (if there are matches to your keywords)

There are also some new search tools, including ‘topic finder’ and ‘term frequency’. The last one allows you to track topics over time e.g. for hedge funds you can see this started to become a widely used term from around 1996 onwards.