Research Tools for Graduate Students Workshop Series: Upcoming Workshops

Monday, September 26, 4-5 pm, Zoom

Instructor: Lisa Becksford

Citation managers like EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero are powerful tools that can help you save, organize, and cite your references. Their use can also help improve your workflow and make the research process easier and less stressful. This session will focus on ways to get the most out of your citation manager. By the end of the session, you’ll be able to

• Integrate citation managers into your existing workflow 

• Identify personal best practices for using citation managers 

• Use advanced features of the citation manager of your choice to streamline your research workflow

This session will assume that you are already using and are familiar with a citation manager like EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. If you’re not, you should familiarize yourself with a citation manager by signing up for one of the introductory sessions in this series or via one of the tutorials on this guide: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/citationmanagers

Register for the session here. 

Wednesday, September 28, 2:30-3:30 pm

Instructor: Sarah Over

You need to write a literature review for your research or class... but how do you get started? What kinds of literature reviews are there? Where should you search? How do you search efficiently and effectively? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this interactive workshop.

By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:

• Identify different types of literature reviews

• Find relevant engineering and related databases

• Create effective searches

This workshop will focus on research in engineering, including computer science. Participants from other disciplines are welcome, but should be aware of the disciplinary focus of this workshop.

Register for the session here.

Wednesday, October 12, 3:30-4:45 pm, Zoom 

Instructor: Rachel Miles

LinkedIn, ORCID, ResearcherID, ResearchGate, Google Scholar Profile...how do you choose which sites you should create professional and scholarly profiles for? This workshop will provide an introduction to creating an online scholarly presence. Learn how to create and maintain your unique author identifier to ensure you get credit for your work, link your profiles together for ease of use, and track research impact metrics and online engagement of your research.

Register for the session here. 



Tuesday, October 4, 2-3:30 pm

Instructor: Sarah Over

Looking for a different platform besides Word or Google for your thesis or dissertation? Or do you want to go beyond the basics in LaTeX? Come learn more about working with LaTeX in Overleaf for larger projects!

In the workshop we’ll cover:

• Setup and structure of large projects with multiple .tex files

• Using citation managers with LaTeX

• Creating your own commands

• Options for collaboration

Experience with LaTeX or other coding experience is highly recommended for this workshop. Students should use their own laptops and have a citation manager (EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc.) installed. Although we will be using Overleaf, you are welcome to use your preferred LaTeX distribution.

Register for the session here.

Thursday, October 6, 2-3:15 pm, Zoom

Instructor: Rachel Miles

Are you ready to publish? Are you wanting to publish but uneasy about the process? Are you uncertain about all the different types of publishing and copyright policies? Are you wary about how to select a journal? Are you confused about author rights?

This introductory workshop will take you step-by-step through the scholarly pre-publishing process to help you identify “predatory journals,” understand author rights, find journal copyright policies, negotiate your rights during submission and acceptance, understand the different Open Access (OA) types, learn how OA benefits you, find high quality journals in your field (OA or subscription), and potentially secure funding when publishing in an OA journal. 

Register for the session here. 

Wednesday, October 26, 2:30-3:45 pm, Zoom 

Instructor: Kiri DeBose

You’ve been assigned to write a literature review...but how do you get started? What kinds of literature reviews are there? Where should you search? How do you know what search terms to use? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this interactive workshop. By the end of this session, you’ll be able to 

• Identify the type of literature review to be conducted
• Find relevant databases to search in the life sciences
• Create effective search strategies

This workshop will focus on research in the life sciences. Other discipline-specific workshops will be offered; see other options above.

Register for the session here.