Tag: Ethos

What will you find on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global?

Daren Mansfield / / Databases

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Please be advised we now have access to Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global , an addition that replaces the previous much smaller collection of Proquest Dissertations & Theses (UK & Ireland). This resource has been added to our Electronic Journals A-to-Z and Database list. The database also includes a banner of what looks like the swankiest restaurant in the world, no doubt situated in Milan or somewhere similar, and designed to attract the most discerning researcher.

You need to select the “Full Text” option in order to search for entire theses. It’s an astonishing collection: for a full text search on ‘entrepreneurship characteristics’, 43,198 results were recorded; some of which included Mercidee Curry’s Students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship at a historically black university in central Mississippi (Mississippi State University, 2012) and Susan J. Stevenson’s Entrepreneurial characteristics: The phenomenological study of the perceived characteristics that influence women to pursue entrepreneurship (Capella University, 2010). What will you find?

Proquest Dissertations & Theses (UK & Ireland) is a wonderful complement to ETHOS, which is the British Library’s collection of PhD Theses.

 

 

Be inspired! Finding Library dissertations & the marvel of EThOS

Daren Mansfield / / University Library

It’s at this time of year when students start browsing the dissertation collection to find out more about structure, particular topics, useful bibliographies and general layout; how contents pages and appendices are managed are also typical enquiries.  Half way down the ground floor of the Library is our dissertation collection, just past the binding area, with undergraduate  dissertations located on the right-hand side of the entrance and postgraduate dissertations on the left.  So, if you’re looking for a particular subject just type ‘BA management‘ or another award into the search box of the Library catalogue; a list of  University of Lincoln dissertations will then appear in date order. The dissertations are arranged by subject and then by surname on the shelves.

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Promoting dissertations gives me another chance to eulogise the merits of another great source of information, the database called  EThOS  which contains over 400,000 doctoral theses. You can download instantly for your research, or order a scanned copy quickly and easily. I’ve found EThOS extraordinarily helpful at supporting students at all levels of study. It saves time in the long run to use these resources, plus you don’t have to read the whole document.

#ShareMyThesis competition

Daren Mansfield / / Databases

In addition to my earlier post about EthOs, the British Library’s digitised theses service where over 140,000 theses are available for download, the British Library launched a prestigious #ShareMyThesis competition where competitors challenged each other on Twitter to inventively summarise their thesis in 140 characters and write a 600 word summary. The top prize went to Sarah Wiseman, who now works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University College London and Open University for the passionate tweet #ShareMyThesis Typing numbers wrongly in hospitals can kill people. Understanding why it happens can help design better systems and stop it!  Sarah’s outstanding thesis is available here…yet another reason why EthOs is worth exploring, which is found under our database section (library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > databases > E > EthOs…)

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Capture sarah theSarah Wiseman, winner of #Sharemythesis competition.

EthOs e-theses online service from the British Library

Daren Mansfield / / Databases

Not many people may be aware of the incredible service that the British Library is now offering in terms of digitising theses across the UK and uploading them onto a database called EthOs. Fortunately the University of Lincoln does subscribe to this facility where you can download or order a copy, and we are proudly able to claim that some 350 of its PhD theses are available on EthOs.  These links can be easily be shared via a plethora of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc…

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We are hoping that Nono Wibisono’s recent PhD entitled ‘Destination image: perception, experience and behavioural intent in the context of West Java, Indonesia as a tourist destination’ is soon added to EthOs as it’s certainly worth reading. This thesis is currently being added to the University of Lincoln’s hard-copy theses collection on the ground floor of the Library, behind the issue desk. Whatever your level of study I find it a useful exercise to browse through a PhD thesis to appreciate the depth of a literature review, how the references are threaded together in a logical debate and learn how to write in an academic style, of which Wibisono’s is a fine example.

Using a thesis as a model of academic writing

Daren Mansfield / / Library Information

I was so impressed by  Gary Ramsden’s fluently structured PhD thesis that I regularly recommend it to students as an example of good academic writing. Students can visit the core collection in the Library to use the thesis as a valued resource as an example of a well written, well argued, thorough critique. Each paragraph clearly argues a viewpoint, discusses it, summarizes and looks ahead to the next theme or discussion point. For me, it demonstrates that Gary knows his subject inside and out, and is able to persuasively express himself without hesitation as a result.

We are often asked how to write academically, how to respond to a question academically, using references to support and argue a particular viewpoint, so why not use it as a valued resource if you are interested in improving your academic critique?

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Gary’s thesis Managing the Humanitarian Supply Chain – a Collaborative Approach? is available through the Lincoln Respository, the Library catalogue and Ethos from the British Library’s digitised theses collection.

 

 

 

 

Gary Ramsden