In conjunction with the #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives initiatives, the workshop has been postponed until tomorrow, June 11th, at 2 pm. We encourage everyone to take today and consider ways to combat the racism that is pervasive in the academia, the community, and our country. The Engineering Library has helped to compile an introductory reading list at https://bit.ly/37ibjf5.
Virtual Boot Coming to a Computer Near You!
Wednesdays, June 10 – July 29
2:00 – 2:30 pm (CDT)
Calling all graduate and undergraduate students, researchers, faculty and staff!
Are you working on your thesis, dissertation, research paper, or an article to publish
and want some help putting it together?
We’ve developed an informative series of eight workshops designed to aid researchers – at all levels – with technical writing tips, library resources, literature reviews, searches, citations, and more! Our goal? To help you write a more polished paper!
Virtual Boot Camp sessions will be on Wednesdays, beginning June 10th with the final one on July 29th. They will be held live from 2:00 to 2:30 pm, with the videos available later if you were unable to make the session, or if you’d like to review the information!
Registration is required for each individual live session. Once you are registered a link will be emailed to you an hour before the session begins! Check out the Virtual Boot Camp website for complete information!
If any questions or concerns, please email Kari Kozak (kari-kozak@uiowa.edu or lib-engineering@uiowa.edu). Presenters include those from: Lichtenberger Engineering Library, Graduate College, and the Writing Center.
Scheduled Sessions:
June 10: Finding Articles, Journals, Government Reports – Library Introduction
Learn about the breadth of resources available in the engineering library – from the online databases and books to technical reports and standards. Uncover the mysteries around how to access everything remotely. Discover the 265+ tools now available for checkout, including new 3D scanners, EEG, oscilloscope, and VR headsets, just to name a few! Learn how you can gain access to these items.
Taught by Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
June 17: Introduction to Comprehensive Literature Reviews
Have you ever struggled with doing literature reviews? Although you do not have to conduct a literature review as thoroughly as a systematic review, some strategies from systematic reviews (defined as “a research method that aims to locate and summarize all available evidence for a research question in order to guide decisions and practices”) may help you tackle your research question in a more rigorous way This workshop will introduce three review types (literature reviews, scoping/mapping reviews and systematic reviews), the review process and research question frameworks, search strategy and some available resources and services.
Taught by Marina Zhang, Engineering & Informatics Librarian, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
June 24: Submitting Your Thesis/Dissertation
Learn about the thesis submission process, issues related to copyright and embargo, and additional resources available from the Graduate College. Learn more about the Microsoft Word tools you can use to format your thesis.
Taught by Erin Kaufman, Graduate College
Register here
July 1: Saving Time (& Citations) with Endnote Desktop
Want to make your research and writing more efficient? Hate the last-minute rush of trying to create a correctly formatted bibliography? This workshop is for you! We will introduce Endnote Desktop, a citation management tool that can help you import, organize, share, and manage your citations and documents, as well as create correctly formatted in-text citations and bibliographies in almost any style — in seconds. Install Endnote Desktop before the class: this interactive workshop will cover everything that you need to know to get up and running with Endnote.
Please download EndNote onto your computer before the class. The full version of EndNote will be taught – the desktop version is freely available to graduate students, staff, and faculty.
Video Tutorial on Downloading Endnote
Taught by Marina Zhang, Engineering & Informatics Librarian, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
July 8: Lions and Tigers and Predatory Journals, Oh My!
In this workshop, you will learn strategies for navigating through the jungle of scholarly publishing. Have you ever wondered how to identify which journal to publish in? Want to learn how to avoid predatory publishers? What is the difference between traditional publishing and open access? This workshop will provide answers to these questions and more. Bring your own questions too!
Taught by Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
July 15: Demystifying Scholarly Metrics
How do you make a list of every single paper that cites you? How do you gather evidence and demonstrate potential values and research impact? This workshop will help you understand how to interpret “standard” scholarly metrics (h-index, impact factor, CiteScore etc.) and where to find them, explore three major sources of citation data (Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar), and identify best practices on broadening your research impact.
Taught by Marina Zhang, Engineering & Informatics Librarian, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
July 22: Keeping up to date: Searching while you are sleeping (Alerts and Notifications)
Are you overwhelmed trying to keep up on the recent research done in your area? Many of the library’s databases allow you to set up alerts and notifications. Alerts can tell you when there is a new issue of your favorite journal, when work by a particular author is available, when a specific article is cited, and when new articles are published that match a saved search. These searches will run automatically overnight and will send you an email with the results. Learn how to set up these alerts and notifications so you can really learn to search while you sleep!
Taught by Kari Kozak, Head, Lichtenberger Engineering Library.
Register here
July 29: Finding and Using a Good Writing Model
In this workshop, we will discuss common challenges faced by students writing at the graduate level, and we will learn various ways to energize and organize your writing. Discover techniques to give your project momentum and motivate daily writing during this phase of your graduate research.
Taught by Deirdre Egan, The Writing Center
Register here
Let us help you with your research paper!
Register today!!
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Kari Kozak, at kari-kozak@uiowa.edu in advance of the event.