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Resource in focus – Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape

Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape is a powerful digital resource, ideal for students and researchers interested in William Wordsworth and the Romantic period.

Screen shot of a verse manuscript from Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape.

 It provides unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.  While also offering a fascinating insight into the wider social, political and natural environment that shaped much of Wordsworth’s work, through the addition of travel journals, legal and financial records, guidebooks and over 2500 pieces of fine art from the Wordsworth Trust. There’s even more to explore with secondary research materials, including essays, biographies, maps, and photographs of the Lake District.

You can choose to browse the database via the Documents and Visual Resources tabs on the menu or use basic / advanced searches to focus your results.

Documents

The Documents section allows you to browse materials by collection (e.g. Dove Cottage manuscripts, Maps, Wordsworth Library Letters) or by document type (e.g. prose manuscript, correspondence, diary) and sort items by date, document type or first line.

You can also run a Document Advanced Search, which allows you to look for keywords within collections, document types or in works by a particular author.

Screen shot of an item record from Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape.

Item records contain clear, full colour, digital scans of the document, which you can view in detail online or download as a PDF. You’ll also find bibliographic details and notes with options to export the record to EndNote or RefWorks.

Visual Resources

Under Visual Resources you can browse the Art Gallery, Art Wall, Photograph Gallery, and Effects and Objects.

The Art Gallery showcases paintings, sketches and prints featuring portraits of Wordsworth and his family, alongside landscapes of the Lake District and other inspirational locations.  The Art Wall provides an in-depth look at a small selection of these artworks with a short essay on their history and context.

Screen shot of an image record from Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape.

The Photograph Gallery provides modern images of the Lake District specially commissioned for the database, while Effects and Objects offers photographs of the rooms and garden of Dove Cottage, and some of Wordsworth’s personal possessions.

You can also run a Visual Resources Advanced Search to focus your exploration.

Images are subject to copyright but may be used for educational purposes.  Take a look at the FAQs in the help section for more details.

More to Explore

Beyond Documents and Visual Resources, you’ll also find a collection of historical maps alongside an interactive map of the Lake District that allows you to explore key areas in the region.  Literary Lives provides brief biographies of the important literary figures of the English Romantic period and in Further Resources you’ll find a timeline of the period as well as a small selection of essays on the theme.

My Archive

You can choose to register for a free My Archive account within the database, which enables you to save searches and build your own library of documents and images. A useful way to keep track of your research and the resources you’ve found.

If you’d like to know more, the Page by Page guide in the Help tab provides detailed guidance on using advanced search features, viewing your search results, using images in teaching and research, and building your collection in My Archive.

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Evaluating Information: Choosing the Cream of the Crop

Field of Wheat

With the high volume of information available to you online when you begin your research, it can be difficult to know which of the sources you find to actually use in your assignments or essays.  Ultimately, you’ll want to choose the information that is of good quality and that can help you to answer your research questions most effectively.  This means you need to make some critical decisions about the information you have found.  Even if the materials you find are from reliable sources, such as Library Search or a Subject Database like Scopus you’ll need to consider how the information you’ve found compares to other information and if it is suitable for your purposes.

To help you make effective critical decisions you’ll need to think about these key areas:

Currency – is the information up-to-date?

Relevance – does it help you answer your research question?

Authority – who wrote it?  How qualified are the authors?

Accuracy – how did the authors of the information reach their conclusions? What evidence and data have they used?

Purpose – Why was it written?

The video below looks at these in more detail:

See our Evaluating Information guide for more advice on selecting suitable information for your assignments and for more on the ins and outs of critical thinking take a look at this great blog from the Writing Development Centre: Shopping Around for a Critical Opinion

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Resource in Focus: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)

Photograph of a dictionary page, showing the definition of technology.

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) indexes and provides abstracts of journal articles, books, book chapters and dissertations on linguistics and language sciences including topics such as:

  • Anthropological linguistics
  • Applied linguistics
  • Descriptive linguistics
  • Discourse analysis
  • Language – pathological and normal
  • Learning disabilities
  • Nonverbal communication
  • Phonetics
  • Phonology
  • Psycholinguistics

It’s an excellent resource for those interested in the nature and use of language.

Screen shot of the LLBA search box.

The database provides both basic and advanced search options and you can limit your results by information (source) type, publication date, subject, language and more.  You can also limit to peer reviewed items only.  While some full text items are available, LLBA item records generally provide only bibliographic information and an abstract, so look out for the ‘Find@Newcastle’ button in your results page, which will help you check for a full text copy of an item in Library Search.

LLBA has the advantage of including a specialised linguistics thesaurus, which you can use in advanced search to refine and focus your search. The thesaurus provides a searchable list of all the subject terms used in the database and highlights links between broader, narrower and related terms, helping you to select all of the keywords relevant to your topic.

Screen shot showing the LLBA thesaurus and advanced search screen.

ProQuest provide a helpful and detailed guide to LLBA which includes search tips for basic and advanced search as well as some sample searches you can work through to familiarise yourself with the database. 

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Decoding your reading list

In the past few weeks you have probably been presented with module handbooks for everything you’re studying, with a list of references to things you are being told to read. Sometimes these will all be in the same referencing style and formatted in a way that you can understand easily what type of information it is. But sometimes, it might be more tricky to work out what exactly it is you are looking for. You can find yourself searching for a journal article, only to discover that it’s a book chapter, and you’ll never find it in a journal database.

If you are feeling a bit confused by your reading list, don’t worry. It’s a common problem and decoding references does get easier as you become more familiar with the referencing conventions of your subject.

There are some easy things to look out for in your references that will help you identify what type of information it is, and the key details, such as the author and title, that you would need to use in order to find it successfully. Take a look at the examples in the gallery to see what to watch out for.

Reference for a book in the Harvard style with the title in italics.
Reference for a book chapter in the Harvard style which includes the chapter and whole book title.
Reference for a journal article that includes the article title, volume and issue of the journal.
Reference for a website in harvard style which includes a url and accessed date.

Your reading list is also linked from your module course on Canvas. Individual items on your reading list will link through to Library Search, showing you print book availability and linking to e-book and e-journal full text wherever possible. This means you wont need to do a separate search.

Find out more about reading lists on the Library website.

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Avoiding the second year slump

One of my good friends is the middle child of three siblings – born between two siblings with strong identities of “the eldest” and “the youngest”- and feels that she gets “forgotten about” or “neglected” by her parents (but of course she never is).

You could compare second year at University to feeling like the second child – not as exciting and ‘new’ as the youngest new-born (first year) nor as distinguished and knowledgeable as the eldest (final year at University) – but definitely never to be forgotten about.

Research conducted by Liverpool John Moores University found that second year students can suffer from ‘underperformance and withdrawal’ (Thompson et al., 2013) and that ‘around a third of undergraduates experienced a slow down in their academic progress during second year’ (Milsom, 2015). So don’t worry if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed and disengaged as you enter your second year of studies, you are definitely not alone.

So how can you get out of your slump?

The research by Liverpool John Moores University highlight the importance of recognising the challenges faced by second year students and identify support that can help you rise to meet them (Thompson et al., 2013).

The Library have definitely not forgotten about our much loved second years, and we’ve been thinking about how we can help – here are our top three ways that the Library and our resources can support you during your second year and how you can hopefully kick-start your engagement with the Library and your studies…

1. Find inspiration

As a second year, you may often feel disengaged, so take some time to remember what you love about you subject; explore your reading lists and Subject Guide(s) to find some wider reading on your favourite topics in your subject area – this may help you build your subject knowledge, help you think about what you want to focus on in third year and remind you why you chose this subject in the start.

The reading lists for your modules is an excellent places to start any refresh. Watch this short video (2:44min) on how to find and use your reading lists:

Another place to re-engage with your subject is our Subject Guides. These guides are created by our ingenious Librarians (*ahem) and are collections of subject specific resources to help you discover reliable and authoritative information for your studies. Remember, if your studies are interdisciplinary, you might have to use multiple guides to ensure find relevant resources.

2. Refresh and build on your skills

Second year is a great time to take some time to refresh or build on your information and academic skills, so you are prepared for your studies becoming more challenging and intense as the year progresses and then transitioning into third year.

Boost your motivation this year by setting yourself small and achievable goals. These could be to improve a mark from last year, to read more widely or to refresh a skill that would be useful for employment. Our Skills Checker is an excellent tool to help you identify an area of information skills to work on.

Once you have identified the areas to work on, check out the ASK website for help and has advice on developing your academic skills. It is your guide to where you can go for support on all aspects of your academic life. With online resources to help you with your academic and study skills, covering topics such as academic integrity and referencing, exams and revisions, learning online and academic writing, you will find the support you need to study successfully.

Also discover our Skills Guides for help on finding, evaluating and managing information and useful guides on subject such as how to use EndNote, how to create an academic poster or how to identify fake news.

Our Employability Guide is another superb guide to show how developing your information and digital literacy skills can help prepare you for your future careers, and don’t forget, Newcastle University’s award-winning Careers Service provide expert advice regarding your future plans.

3. Ask for help

The Library is always here to help, so contact us by email, chat, phone or by social media 24/7 to ask any question regarding the Library services and resources.

The Library Liaison team and the Writing Development Centre are also available to meet (via Zoom or Teams) for a one-to-one appointment to help you on any aspect of Library and academic skills that you need help with. You can book an appointment via Library Help.

I hope we have reassured you that you lovely second years are definitely not forgotten and that we are here to help you on your academic journey every step of the way (*oh so cheesy). These are difficult times but with a bit of grit and determination we have confidence that you will succeed in every way.

References

Milsom, C. (2015) ‘Disengaged and overwhelmed: why do second year students underperform?’, The Guardian, 16 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/feb/16/disengaged-and-overwhelmed-why-do-second-year-students-underperform#:~:text=Positioned%20between%20two%20years%20with,often%20seems%20to%20be%20overshadowed.&text=The%20issue%20is%20widely%20recognised,related%20underperformance%20and%20disengagement%20extensively (Accessed: 28 October 2020).

Thompson, S., Milsom, C., Zaitseva, E., Stewart, M., Darwent, S. and Yorke, M. (2013) The Forgotten Year? Tackling the Second Year Slump. Liverpool John Moores University. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/forgotten-year-tackling-%25E2%2580%2598sophomore-slump%25E2%2580%2599 (Accessed: 28 October 2020).

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Three Steps to Getting the Most from EndNote

Someone walking up metal staircase

If you’re writing a detailed essay, dissertation or thesis, reference management software such as EndNote can save you a lot of time and effort but only so long as you put in some time and effort to learn how it works first.

So let us help you get a head start with these three steps:

Step 1: Getting set up & practising the basics

Use our online workbook to get off on the right foot with EndNote; it will guide you through setting up your EndNote Library, adding references and using EndNote with Word.

You can watch this handy video from Clarivate for a visual demonstration too:

Step 2: Organisation from chaos

You’ve probably got a lot of records in your Library now so it’s time to get organised!  Take a look at these short guides and build up your EndNote expertise:

These tools will help you keep all your information together and make it easily accessible for step three…

Step 3: Now for the real magic

Now you’ve collected and organised your references, it’s time to put them to work for you using Cite While You Write in Word.  Watch this video from Clarivate to see how it’s done:

Some EndNote Extras

Keen to learn even more? Take a look at the EndNote Extras section of our EndNote Guide to find out how to merge documents and reference lists, how to share your Library with colleagues or how to find the full text PDF of an article from your EndNote Library.

Outside the Box

While the University has a subscription to EndNote and the Library offer some support to help you use it, there are other reference management software tools available.  Take a look at this FAQ to see some comparison charts that can help you decide which tool might be best for you!

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Managing Information: Referencing

Referencing is an important part of academic writing – you’ll usually find it included in the marking criteria for your assignments and projects, with marks being awarded for correctly formatted citations and reference lists.

Why is referencing important?

  • It acknowledges the ideas and contributions of others that you have drawn upon in your work, ensuring that you avoid plagiarism
  • It highlights the range of reading you’ve done for your assignment and makes your own contribution clear, showing how you’ve taken ideas from others and built upon them
  • It enables the person reading your work to follow up on your references so they can learn more about the ideas you’ve discussed in your work or check any facts and figures.

How does referencing work?

Are there any tools that can help?

Yes!  There are lots of referencing tools that can help you manage and format your citations and references correctly.  Here are some examples:

A very useful online tool that lists all the information you need to include in a reference and provides examples of how a reference will look as an in-text citation and in a reference list.  See our ‘Level Up Your Referencing: Cite Them Right’ blog for more information.

  • Citation Buttons
Citation button consisting of a speech mark "

Keep an eye out for this symbol on Library Search and Google Scholar.  Clicking the button will provide the option for you to copy a reference in a particular style and paste it directly into your reference list.  You might need to tidy it up a little bit but it will save you time over writing them manually.

Reference building tools help you to create a bibliography using the correct referencing style.  You can input information manually or use import functions to pull information through from other webpages or documents.  As with the citation button above, reference building tools can save you time but you may still need to check the references are accurate.

  • Reference Management Software: e.g. EndNote

If you’re writing a detailed essay, dissertation or thesis, you may like to use a reference management tool such as EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero to help keep all of your references organised.  This software allows you to manually add references or import them from Library Search, Google Scholar or Subject Databases; sort references into groups; attach pdf documents or add notes.  You can then use the reference management software while you write to add in-text citations and format your reference list.

The University has a subscription for EndNote which is available in all University clusters and can be downloaded to your own personal device. You’ll find information about how to get started with EndNote on our EndNote Guide.

Remember: whatever tool you use, it’s always a good idea to get to know the conventions of the referencing style your school or lecturer would like you to use so that you can spot mistakes or missing information.

You can find out more about referencing and plagiarism by following this tutorial from Cite Them Right (You’ll need to log in to the institutional log in with your University username and password.)

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Resource in focus: Perdita Manuscripts

Perdita Manuscript icon

The Perdita Manuscripts is an excellent resource for those interested in Early Modern history, Women’s Studies, and the History of the Book. It provides access to digital copies of little known manuscripts written by women, together with helpful notes and essays by experts in the field.

The database holds over 230 digitised manuscripts created and compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  These previously ‘lost’ (perdita) female authors produced a diverse range of content such as account books, calligraphic writing, culinary writing, diaries, medical writing, prayers, prose, translations, travel writing, verse and more. The collection also includes writing in English, French, Greek, Italian, Latin and Spanish.

Screenshot of a Perdita Manuscript scanned document

Document detail pages include a scan of the original document, which you can enlarge to read or download as a pdf, alongside bibliographic details of the manuscript. Links below provide further details, sometimes including physical descriptions of the manuscript, additional information on the repository holding the item, notes and searchable keywords.

Some manuscripts also include section details for each page of the scanned document, which have details such as genre of a section, first and last lines and folio information.

Screenshot showing the section detail tab and search results tab in Perdita Manuscripts.

Where you have accessed the document via a search query, you’ll also find a Search Results tab, which provides an overview of where your search terms can be found in the document.

The manuscripts can be explored and accessed in three ways:

Browse Documents Section

Under the Browse Documents tab, you can browse the manuscripts by alphabetical listing, genre, repository, date, language or by particular primary authors (Perdita Women).

Search Directories

The Search Directories, available under the Research Tools tab, allow for browsing using subject terms lists (metadata). You can select from a list of Perdita Women (primary authors of manuscripts), Names in general (key names included in the database, excluding the Perdita Women), Places, and Genre.

Screenshot showing the terms lists within the Search Directory of Perdita Manuscripts.

In the Research Tools tab you’ll also find an index of the first lines of both poetry and prose texts.

Search Tool

The search tool located in the top right, provides options for a basic keyword search and an advanced search.  While BOOLEAN operators, phrase searching, and wildcards can be applied in both search options, advanced search allows for a more complex query to be constructed by searching particular fields (e.g. title), limiting by date, and selecting specific terms from lists of Perdita women, languages, genres or sources.

The Help section provides further useful advice and guidance on searching the database and using the digitised images in your study, research or teaching.

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New ebook collections for arts and humanities

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

The Library has invested in thousands of new ebooks since March, to help widen our collections and enable access for students, wherever you are based.

As well as purchasing individual titles, we have also bought several specialist collections of particular interest to arts and humanities, including the following:

  • Bloomsbury collections in Education, Film and Media, Law, Linguistics and Literary Studies (535 titles in total)

In addition, we have leased access to multidisciplinary academic collections from the following publishers:

All the new titles are individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can browse the books available to us on the publisher’s platform (make sure you are logged in with your Newcastle University username and password).

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Meet the Liaison team

By now some of you may have already met us in your Canvas modules or in online sessions, but if not you may be wondering who we are and what we do. As the name suggests, the Library’s liaison team liaise with the academic schools at Newcastle University, to help us plan and deliver excellent Library services which meet the needs of staff and students. We’re a friendly bunch: you should get to know us!

What is a Liaison Librarian?

Let Lucy, the Liaison Librarian for Arts and Law, give you a taste of what our role involves. 

How can you get in touch with us?

We’re here to help you get the best out of the Library, so if you need help it’s easy to get in touch. Use Library Help to get in touch 24/7, contact the Liaison Team for your subject area or visit your Subject Guide to find out about the resources and help available for you. We recommend you use the subject team email addresses, rather than emailing an individual person. That’s because some of us work part-time, or may be away:  emailing the team will ensure you’ll get a prompt answer.