Library Skills & Resources

Fundamentals for graduate students

Our Graduate Students guide tries to bring together all the library-related resources and services you will need for your studies at Concordia. It can help you pinpoint the best spots on the library web site for graduate students and discover the services, resources and perks reserved for grad students only. 

Our Library Guide for New Students has general information and videos that introduce the Concordia Library

• Use an ASK A LIBRARIAN service such as our live chat feature, for quick and direct questions about library resources and services.
  
  
• Contact the Subject Guide for your Discipline to ask more in-depth questions about your research or to make an appointment for a one-on-one consultation. 

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The Sofia Discovery tool that appears on our homepage is a general purpose tool, NOT a subject-specific resource. 

TO FIND AND USE SUBJECT-SPECIFIC DATABASES AND TOOLS, CHOOSE ONE OF TWO POSSIBLE PATHS:

1. Start with the Subject Guide for your Discipline to discover and access databases and other resources considered essential for your discipline and recommended by your Subject Librarian
   
   
2. Use our Databases by Subject listing to quickly access your favourite databases, or browse by Database Type, such as primary sources or those all-important theses & dissertations.

*Save time by learning effective search techniques in our search skills tutorial.

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To manage what you found in the databases and create instant bibliographies:

ZOTERO is a free and popular citation tool

To begin:

1. Register for a free account
2. DOWNLOAD the appropriate Zotero program for your computer and Connector for your browser
3. Learn more via our:
   • Library Zotero workshops  
   • GradProSkills Zotero Workshops  
   •  Zotero help page

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Virtually all of the resources listed on this page can be helpful when you are preparing your literature review.

Some tools, however, can be especially useful in this area. Here are a few:

• Annual Review Journals
  • One of the main tasks of the articles in these journals is to review the literature related to a particular research topic. Finding a ready-made review on a topic similar to yours can get you an important head start. Concordia subscribes to Annual Reviews in multiple subject areas, particularly natural sciences and social sciences.
• Systematic reviews
  • Concordia Library's guide to systematic reviews and other knowledge syntheses: information and tools you need to plan and carry out a systematic review or other knowledge synthesis project
  • Cochrane Library (health topics, including psychology and public health)
  • Campbell Systematic Reviews (social sciences, including business, management, sociology, education, social welfare, and more)
• Encyclopedias
  • Find background information and lists of keys sources. The Library has encyclopedias in most subject areas. Visit the subject guides to find them.
• Oxford Bibliographies
  • These can provide brief introductions to branches or areas or research, and include extensive lists of important sources in many subjects in the humanities and social sciences. 
• Theses & Dissertations at Concordia and beyond
  • As you may know, dissertations and theses include literature reviews and long bibliographies, and they cover topics that are new or emerging. In addition to using the tools listed via our theses & dissertations guide, note that Google Scholar can also be a great tool to find recent theses.
    
• Writing and help guides for YOUR thesis and literature review
  • Though part of the Library Guide for Writing in Engineering, the books from Concordia Library listed via the link above can help students in any subject area. 
• Synthesizing your literature: here are some examples of templates that you can use to summarize your sources
  • Summary matrix (Word - 19 KB           
  • Synthesis matrix (Excel - 52 KB)
  • Synthesis matrix (Word - 19 KB)

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Virtually all of the resources listed on this page can help you find material about research methods and writing techniques.

But here are two resources that we recommend:

• Sage Research Methods Online
  • This tool contains encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, journal articles and videos dealing with research methods in both theoretical and practical terms. It also includes Methods Map, a visualization tool that tries to map relationships between methods. 
• The American Chemical Society Guide to Scholarly Communication
  
  • An online guide that's relevant for all disciplines, covering topics such as how to select a journal, the peer review process, and conventions for scholarly writing.
            

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Many databases and online journals will allow you to receive email or RSS feed notifications when new content is added. Look in the help files within the resource for more information or ask your subject librarian. Also:

• Concordia Library RSS guide: A guide to setting up alert feeds for article databases and more
• JournalTOCs: Sign up for a free account to receive an email with the table of contents when new issues of the journals you've selected are published.

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AT CONCORDIA:

• Use our Sofia Discovery tool to find:
  • articles, books, videos
  • Concordia theses — Also use our Institutional Repository, Spectrum.
  • journals — Also try our E-journals search page and BrowZine for browsing online journals.
     
• NOTE: The Findit@Concordia button in most of our Databases can often help you directly access Concordia material, but IT DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK! Try the alternatives described on this page or Ask a Librarian for help.
  

• *TIP: Find out how to search for print journals in the library, and use the Article/Chapter Scan & Deliver service to request PDF scans of articles in print journals or chapters in print books. 
  
  
• ACCESS COURSE READINGS:  Professors will often put these online via Course Reserves.

BEYOND CONCORDIA:

• Use our Sofia Discovery tool to find material available: 
  • at Concordia 
  • at Quebec University Libraries (Bibliothèques universitaires du Québec) 
  • at Libraries Worldwide.
    
    
• You can also use our Interlibrary Loans form to request - for free - books, journal articles and conference papers from anywhere in the world. You can make requests through your Sofia account.
  
  
• You can use your Concordia ID to borrow material from other Quebec university libraries. Please contact the institution you'll be visiting to check their access policies. 
  
  
• Obtain a PBUQ card to borrow material from libraries across Canada (outside Quebec).  Please contact the institution you'll be visiting to check their access policies. 
  
  
• TIP:  Google Books searches within the pages of millions of books. 
  
   

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• Use our Sofia Discovery tool to locate and connect to our resources from home -- you will automatically be prompted for your Concordia Netname and password. 
  
  
• Set up Google Scholar to use Findit@Concordia.