Note: Since Cognitive Sciences is an interdisciplinary subject, it will be covered at both McCabe Library & Cornell Library. Both Megan Adams (Social Sciences Librarian) and Meg Spencer (Science Librarian) may be contacted for further information.
1. Find a topic. Where?
- your professor may
give you one.
- browse journals for interesting topics. Take a look at journals
like Nature,
Science,Trends
in Cognitive Science
(Cornell), or Memory & Cognition
(McCabe).
- Check with your professor to make sure the topic is appropriate for
the assignment!
Hint: Make sure the topic is interesting to you! It will make your work a lot easier...
2. Get some background information on your subject.
Go into TRIPOD and do a WORD search to see if there are any books on the subject. Look at publication dates - unless this is an historical overview, you'll most likely want current books on your topic. (Note: Cognitive Science is very much an interdisciplinary subject, so books may be found in all sorts of areas like BF201 (Cognitive Psychology), LB (Education), QP360 (Cognitive Neuroscience), or RC489 (Cognitive Therapy)). Want to know more about the Library of Congress classification? The explanation on the about.com site maps it out very nicely.
• Check out COGNET - "The Brain Sciences Connection" - an online collection of reference books, textbooks, journals and much more, all having to do with cognitive sciences.
Note: If you aren't able to track down a book on Tripod, check out WorldCat, an amazing, huge database of over 36 million items (books, videos, etc). It's a good place to discover new resources, or get a complete record for an InterLibrary Loan request.
• Using Encyclopedias & Handbooks in the Reference section (both Cornell AND McCabe!) can also give you manageable overview articles or definations of terms:
McCabe Ref BF 31 .E5 1994 Encyclopedia of Human Behavior
McCabe Ref BF 318 .E53 1992 Encyclopedia of Learning & Memory
Cornell Ref QH 302 .5 .A2313 1996 Concise Encyclopedia of Biology
Cornell Ref QP 6 .H25 Sect I v.5 Handbook of Physiology: The Nervous System
Cornell Ref QP 356 .4 .H695 2002 v. 1- 5 Hormones, Brain & Behavior
Cornell Ref QP 363 .3 .H36 2003 The Handbook of Brain Theory & Neural Networks
Cornell Ref QP363 .5 .H365 2001 Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Cornell Ref QP376 .E59 2002 Encyclopedia of the Human Brain
Cornell Ref RC 334 .E53 1987 Encyclopedia of Neuroscience
• Check out xRefer Plus is a giant online reference library that provides you with access to a selection of 169 reference books. xreferplus includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations, not to mention a range of subject-specific titles covering everything from art to accountancy and literature to law. Find out about the Science titles in xreferplus.
Also, for general articles & definitions, check out Access Science site which is the electronic version of McGraw Hill Dictionary of Science & Technology!
• Google: Cognitive Science - pre-selected web sites by Google. There are also useful usenet groups on the Web discussing cognitive science stuff.
• Cog Prints - an open archive of unrefereed preprints & refereed journal reprints in the Cognitive Sciences.
• Encyclopedia of Life Sciences - the online version of Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (REF QH302 .5 .E54 2002).
• Neurosciences on the Internet - A searchable and browsable index of neuroscience resources available on the Internet: Neurobiology, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science sites and information on human neurological diseases.
2. Now you will need to find specific JOURNAL ARTICLES on your topic. For an overview of your topic, you might want to look for review articles. For more information, check out the web page on "How to find review articles".
Indexes & Databases on Tripod & the Web
• ProQuest Research Library - offers citations and full-text articles from thousands of academic and popular journals on all subjects, from 1971 through today. Always a good place to start!
• WEB OF SCIENCE - this is a good, interdisciplinary index with a unique feature which allows you to search for articles which CITE a particular article. Endnote and Web of Science
•PSYCHINFO- An international index to journal articles andbook chapters in psychology and related disciplines (e.g. psychiatry, sociology, education, pharmacology and linguistics). 1967 to the present for journals; 1987 to the present for book chapters.
• COGNET- a growing collection of searchable electronic texts for the cognitive and brain sciences.
• PUBMED - the web version of Medline. There is a brief guide to using Pubmed, with much additional help online. PubMed & Endnote
• Google Scholar - Google provides a pretty good database for searching for scholarly literature. Use this IN ADDITION to library-provided databases, as there is a lot that is NOT included in Google Scholar. But - it also often digs up good stuff that the other databases don't! Use the "Check Tripod" and "Find it @ Swarthmore" links to see if we have access to full text.
• CITESEER - a scientific literature digital library. Topics covered include Artificial Intelligences, databases, machine learning, programming and much more.
• ANNUAL REVIEWS - online access to ALL of the Annual Reviews we currently subscribe to. You can also find these IN PRINT - do a search on Tripod for a specific series title. OR you can do a Tripod search and select a specific title online.
Electronic Journals & MORE!
• We do not have electronic access to ALL journals! There are still journals that don't exist electronically. Check Tripod for PRINT holdings.
• Look for the Connect to [journal title] from SWARTHMORE message in the middle of the journal record. If there is no Swarthmore message, that means we don't have access to it. If the journal is available at Bryn Mawr or Haverford Science Libraries, you will need to request the article via InterLibrary Loan .
• Look for the MORE! button by citations when you run a search in most indexes. Click on the MORE! button next to the citation you want and a second window will open up.
From this window you can:
• Link to the electronic article if it is from an e-journal subscribed to by Swarthmore.
• Search TRIPOD to see if Swarthmore has the journal IN PRINT.
• SEARCH TRIPOD to see if the journal is available from Bryn Mawr or Haverford.
• Send an article request to InterLibrary Loan. The form will self-populate with the necessary information from the citation. All you need to do is add your name & barcode and press the 'send request' button!
• Find out more about MORE!
InterLibrary LoanWhile Cornell Library has a really good collection, obviously there will be times when we don't actually own something you've located in your research. That is when you'll need to borrow from other libraries and to do this you will need Inter-Library Loan (ILL).
Tri-College ILL - BOOKS: If you want a book from Bryn Mawr or Haverford, simply press the REQUEST button at the top of the Tripod screen. Enter your name & barcode, and select WHERE you want to pick up the book. Delivery takes approximately one day library to library.
Non-TriCollege ILL - BOOKS: For books NOT available in Tripod, try E-Z Borrow and request books directly from nearby Pennsylvania & NJ libraries.
JOURNAL ARTICLES: If you need an article from a journal not subscribed to by Swarthmore, fill out the journal article request form.
• Your Swat ID will get you into Penn's libraries, but you cannot borrow directly from them. You must use ILL to get anything from Penn.
• For information on citing sources and writing up bibliographies, there are lots of style manuals in the Reference sections of both McCabe & Cornell.There is also online information on citing electronic resources in Online!, an e-book with APA, MLA, Chicago and other styles of citations.
• In McCabe, the Reference Desk is covered most days from 10 - 10. In Cornell, we do not have formal Reference Desk coverage, so if you have any questions or problems finding information there, please do not hesitate to come to my office and ask me. If I am unavailable, send me an e-mail.
Meg Spencer, Science Librarian
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/cornell/Sciences/cogsci.htm
Created 9.6.01 Last updated 1.18.06 mes