New modules added to our SAGE Research Methods collection

Following a successful trial of the resources in 2022-23, we have added two additional modules to our SAGE Research Methods collection. Through the Library you now have access to a host of guidance, worked examples, teaching resources and practice materials from SAGE Research Methods, SAGE Research Methods Video, SAGE Research Methods Datasets and SAGE Research Methods Data Visualisation.

Datasets

SAGE Research Methods Datasets is a collection of hundreds of teaching datasets and instructional guides that give you the chance to learn data analysis through hands-on practice.

This new resource is a bank of topical, practice datasets, indexed by method and data type. For academic staff, the datasets have been optimised for use in your teaching and can be used for in person teaching or within Canvas materials. This will save you the time of sourcing and cleaning data for use by you and your students.

The decisions researchers make when analysing data can be a mystery to students embarking on research for the first time. Through practicing analysis using real data from SAGE Research Methods Datasets, you can see how analytic decisions are made, helping you become confident researchers.

  • Quantitative datasets are taken from surveys and experiments and come with instructions to analyze the data in SPSS or R.
  • Qualitative datasets are taken from academic research projects, providing bite-size examples from interviews, focus groups, documentary sources, and more, plus advice on how to approach analysis.

You will find lots of guidance on how to get the most out of the datasets module on the SAGE Research Methods LibGuide.

Data Visualisation

SAGE Research Methods Data Visualisation will help all researchers, from beginners to more advanced practitioners develop the fundamentals of data and design necessary to create impactful visualisations. Through a series of practical video tutorials, text guides and practice datasets, the resources will help you identify the chart types that best fit your specific data story.

Researchers increasingly grapple with complex or big data and need to present their data in an understandable, easy to interpret, and informative way to disseminate their research successfully. Mastering the skills and techniques of data visualisation is, therefore, key for any researcher. This new resource will help you and your students to communicate data with impact so that audiences can grasp difficult concepts or identify new patterns and relationships easily.

You are able to search and browse by data and chart type to find how to guides and explainer videos, explore a directory of data visualisation software and access datasets to help you practice communicating data.

Books added to the Library by students in ECLS (Semester Two 2022/23)

Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.

Further information about Recommend a book.

In Semester Two, academic year 2022/2023 we successfully processed 44 requests in ECLS totalling just over £3793.

(En)countering native-speakerism : global perspectives
A narrative approach to life story work
Academic discourse across disciplines
Advising on research methods: A consultant’s companion
Audio Education Theory, Culture, and Practice
Australian English Reimagined
Beyond Smarter: mediated learning and the brain’s capacity for change
Brain-based learning
Brain-based learning : the new paradigm of teaching
Changing Practices for the L2 Writing Classroom: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
Cognition, Education, and Communication Technology
Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and how They Can Stay”
Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a childs\’ narrative
Digital L2 Writing Literacies Directions for Classroom Practice
Education for sustainable development in the Caribbean: pedagogy, processes and practices
English speech rhythm: form and function in everyday verbal interaction
Entrepreneurial Women in the Caribean: Critical inisghts and policy implications
Glocal Narratives of Resilience
Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance
International Faculty in Higher Education: Comparative Perspectives on Recruitment, Integration, and Impact
interthinking: putting talk to work
Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning
Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn: Understanding and Promoting Educationally Productive Collaborative Work
Metacognition in Learning and Instruction: Theory, Research and Practice
Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice
Mindful L2 Teacher Education A Sociocultural Perspective on Cultivating Teachers\’ Professional Development
Multimodal Communication in Intercultural Interaction
Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching
Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School
Provoking Thought: Memory and Thinking in ELT
Reason & Rigor How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research
Reconsidering Patient Centred Care: Between Autonomy and Abandonment
Reflective practice in action: 80 reflection breaks for busy teachers.
Revisiting Insider-Outsider Research in Comparative and International Education (Bristol Papers in Education)
School connectedness for students with disabilities: From theory to evidence-based practice
Social Communication Development and Disorders
The Place of English as an International Language in English Language Teaching: Teachers’ Reflections
The Pronunciation of Standard English in America
The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice
The Theoretical Framework in Phenomenological Research: Development and Applicat
Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking classroom talk (4th Edition)
Video-mediated communication
Voice Unearthed: Hope, Help and a Wake-up Call for the Parents of Children Who Stutter
Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (second edition)

Oxford Bibliographies Online

After trialling on several occasions we have recently been able to purchase the Oxford Bibliographies Online collection which gives staff and students access to a comprehensive collection of articles published and reviewed by academics covering a wide range of subject areas. Users can personalise their experience by saving citations and articles to their own profile.

Oxford Bibliographies Online

Subject areas covered (click on subject to link to resource via Library Search)

Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions

In the library we love these short guides from OUP who provide a variety of great concise books on lots of different topics.

We’ve recently updated this collection so it includes to most recent publications from OUP published in 2022 and 2023.

This series offers concise introductions to a diverse range of subjects—from artificial intelligence to folk music to medical ethics—in 35,000 words or less.

Each one of these big little books provides intelligent and serious introductions written by experts who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make even the most challenging topics highly readable.

On our catalogue, Library Search you can search by keywords like in the screenshot below so “very short introduction” and browse through or add in Oxford to add in results for that publisher. Re-sort your results to “newest” if you’d like to browse through the latest ones added to our collection.

Or visit the OUP Very Short Introductions website directly and then filter using the subject categories. OUP have arranged the titles under headings such as Medicine and Health, Arts and Humanities, Law, Social Sciences

if you are accessing off campus then once you’re on the OUP site please click “sign in” (on the left hand menu and select Newcastle University from the list to enter your Campus ID and password.)

Oxford University Press also have a podcast you can subscribe to about titles and topics in this collection.

Books added to the Library by students in ECLS (Semester One 2022/23)

Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.

Further information about Recommend a book.

In Semester One, academic year 2022/2023 we successfully processed 9 requests from 7  students (5  PGR, 2  PGT and  0 UGT) in ECLS totalling £325.00.

Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy

Global Englishes: A Resource Book for Students (Routledge English Language Introductions)

Reading Unbound: Why Kids Need to Read What They Want – and Why We Should Let Them

Teacher Noticing: Bridging and Broadening Perspectives, Contexts, and Frameworks (IN PRINT)

The Art of Statistical Thinking: Detect Misinformation, Understand the World Deeper, and Make Better Decisions

The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics

The Owl Factor: Reframing your Teaching Philosophy

Thematic analysis : a practical guide

Youth Justice A Critical Introduction

Books added to the Library by students in ECLS (Semester Three 2021/22)

Our Recommend a Book service for students allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.

Further information about Recommend a book.

In Semester Three, academic year 2021/2022 we successfully processed 23 requests from 12 students (9 PGR,  3 PGT and 0 UGT) in ECLS totalling just over £2000.

Advances in Design for Cross-Cultural Activities Part I

Combining Methods in Educational and Social Research

Corpus Linguistics for English for Academic Purposes

Educational Research An Unorthodox Introduction

Eye-tracking in Interaction

Getting published in academic journals: navigating the publication process

Handbook of Cultural Intelligence Theory, Measurement, and Applications

Handbook of Integrative Developmental Science: Essays in Honor of Kurt W. Fischer

Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation.

JD Salinger’s the Catcher in the Rye

Language and Learning in the Digital Age

Language in Use: A Reader

Qualitative Content Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Quantitative methods in educational research: The role of numbers made easy

Reframing Sociocultural Research on Literacy

Research in psychology: Methods and design / 6th

Social Semiotics: Key Figures, New Directions

The Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Exploration

Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide

Understanding and Challenging the SEND Code of Practice

Using Art Therapy with Diverse Populations: Crossing Cultures and Abilities

Validity Theoretical Development and Integrated Arguments

What We See and What We Say Using Images in Research, Therapy, Empowerment, and Social Change

Spotlighting Scopus and ScienceDirect: new features from Elsevier.

Scopus

The Scopus Search Results page has been redesigned, the following new and exciting features include: –

  • Search functionality on search result page itself
  • User-friendly filters/facets and customized different views on how the results are displayed
  • A new an intuitive page layout

Why not try the new version for yourself! Just perform a Scopus search then click on the ‘try the new version’ link at the banner at the top of the page. If you want to know more just click on ‘take a tour’. You can easily return to old version by clicking on the link ‘return to old version’.

If you want to know what else Scopus have done in 2022, have a look on their website.

We are hosting a Scopus webinar on December 8, which is a great opportunity to come and find out more about getting the most from the database.

ScienceDirect

The Topics pages on ScienceDirect have been compiled into a new homepage, and offers a way to:-

  • Search all Topics pages
  • Search and browse within specific subject areas
  • Register to receive recommended articles based on your search activity.

The extracts provided on ScienceDirect Topics are written by experts and are drawn from foundational and reference materials. The source materials used include major reference works such as encyclopaedias, journal review articles, monographs, book series and handbooks.

For a list of ScienceDirect topics, have a look on their website.

Guest Post: A 3rd year’s hints and tips, all things law and non-law

About me

My name is Lia, and I am a 3rd year undergraduate law student. The modules I am doing this year are Employment, Careers, Company, Mediation, Evidence and Commercial. I am originally from Peterborough but love Newcastle so much that I want to stay here after I’ve finished studying! My career aspirations are hopefully to become a commercial solicitor in Newcastle.

What do I know now that I wish I knew when I first started?

My 1st year was very different to the norm as I was the Covid year, which made my 2nd year even harder having to learn to adapt to in-person teaching. My advice would be to work 9-5 during the week and give yourself as much time off in the evenings so that you can go out, hang out with your friends, and do extracurricular societies and sports clubs.

1st year and 2nd year are all about making mistakes and learning from them, so never be too hard on yourself. It is more important to always get feedback from coursework and exams, knowing that whatever questions you have other students, the librarians and lecturers will all be able to help.

Seminars are also everyone’s saviours as they literally ask you to prepare the exam questions. I think you should prepare these to your best ability and try do some follow up work on the seminar after you have had everyone’s input.

Client Interviewing

In my 2nd year I entered the client interviewing competition with my friend, Daisy. This was highly rewarding as we learnt how to conduct ourselves when meeting clients and eventually won the competition overall.

The best part of our prize was that we got free work experience at Ward Hadaway, a regional law firm in Newcastle. I completed seats in Real Estate and Commercial litigation whilst I was there.

Text reads: To the winners Daisy and Lia, Newcastle University Law Society Client Interviewing Competition 2022. Two photographs show each winner smiling.
Image from Newcastle Uni Law Society Instagram @nulawsociety

Now, in my 3rd year, I am one of the client interviewing officers this year for the law society. This year Daisy and I are hoping to make the competition better than ever and help participants develop their skills by offering more training sessions than previous years and more competitions. I really advise any 1st or 2nd years to do this as an extra-curricular as it doesn’t take up too much time, looks great on your CV and is judged by Ward Hadaway solicitors who offer money and work experience as a prize!

Favourite Places…

To Study

To Eat Out

For Drinks

Resource Trial – Faculti Platform

Faculti is a media library of up to date academic and professional research insights. It is cross disciplinary and includes insights from The United Nations, UK Parliament, Bank of England and many other academic and research institutions worldwide.
It includes useful Leading Figures, Most Cited and Explainers categories as well as the ability to browse specific subject areas or do a keyword search.
Our free trial lasts until 10th November 2022.

Faculti platform

The platform is compatible with any desktop computer or mobile device.

If you’re on campus then access the platform here

If you’re off campus you’ll need to authenticate in a different way so click on access via this link

The trial ends on 11th November 2022. To help us evaluate it, please email us your feedback, or leave a reply on this blog.

New resource now available: Mass Observation 2000s

We’re pleased to announce that we have now added the latest 2000s module to the very popular Mass Observation Online resource. We already had access to the 1980s and 1990s modules.

About Mass Observation

Mass Observation is a pioneering project which documents the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers (‘observers’) to write about their lives, experiences and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This latest instalment is a great resource for anyone researching aspects of the early 21st century. It complements our existing access to the original Mass Observation project archive, which covers 1937-1967.

2000s collection

This module has a strong emphasis on technological advancements and the changing means of communication that came with the new Millennium. Highlights include the Millennium Diaries, the events of September 11th and environmental concerns, as well as detailing the everyday lives, thoughts, and opinions of respondents.

Searching and browsing

Screenshot of filtering options
Filtering options

You can browse or search Mass Observation in various ways.

Browse by directive: browse the different directives (surveys), which are arranged chronologically and by topic.

Browse all documents: browse all the individual documents, and then further filter your search as required.

You can also use the Advanced search box at the top of the screen to search for specific topics.

Help

Screenshot of research tools
Research tools

We’d recommend you start by reading through the Introduction (top menu) which explains more about the project and the different document types. If you’re looking for ideas about how to make use of it, take a look at the Research Tools, which includes essays, videos, exhibitions and chronological timelines.

Note that as over half the materials in these collections (mainly the pre-2000s modules) are handwritten, the database enables Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) to help you search. We would recommend you read about how HTR works, to help you get the best out of the database, in the Introduction section.