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Take a look, it’s in a book … workshop

Have you ever been stuck working on a paper? Feeling despair, almost accepting an “F” in the entire class? Papers can be confusing. Every student has been involved in a similar situation at least once in their lives. Students often don’t know how to research properly. The Florida Gulf Coast University library has come to the rescue.

Librarians can be contacted through email messages, chat rooms on the library website, by making a private appointment or by addressing the reference desk in the library. On top of all this, there is an additional way in which a student, faculty or staff member can learn more about the library resources. This additional way is by attending a workshop.

The library offers workshops every semester. They are offered at different times, locations and days. Most of the workshops are offered in the library instruction lab, Library 211, but sometimes they are offered right in the residence halls. The spring 2015 workshop calendar is now available online.

Kay Oistad, business librarian, encourages everybody to attend a workshop. “It’s an additional way to learn about resources available through the library,” Oistad said. “They’re fun and exciting.”

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Librarians teach the workshops, which often involve demonstrations on how to find books and articles for research assignments, how to search for eBooks at FGCU, and how to distinguish credible sources. Some workshops are offered consistently, but others vary by semester.

“Workshops are just another way to get instruction in the research that the library provides,” Oistad said.

Workshop topics can vary from basic research to finding peer-reviewed articles. This semester, the library will partner with the Writing Center to hold the “Research + Good Writing = an ‘A’ Paper” workshop. This two-part series is designed to demonstrate how to incorporate research into your paper effectively.  Another workshop  this semester, “Formatting Your Thesis or Dissertation for Electronic Submission” was designed for graduate students to attend. Graduate students can learn how to format their thesis or dissertation and submit it to ProQuest.

The “Congressional Secrets Revealed” workshop will teach students how to use the Federal Digital System to locate and access valuable resources. Students can also learn how to request books and articles from other libraries with the “Interlibrary Loan and UBorrow” workshop.

Students aren’t the only people who can attend these programs. In fact, there are some specifically made for faculty such as “Someone Cited Me”. This workshop will show faculty how to see how many times they have been cited, how to keep track of which libraries have their work, and what their “impact factor” is.

The workshops for the spring 2015 semester will begin Wednesday, Jan. 21.

For more information about the workshops and registration, go to here.

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