Library website
It’s best to access everything via the CityLibrary website either via our Databases A-Z, Journals A-Z or CityLibrary Search. For electronic resources, this will help you to log in with your City credentials and enable you to access the content which City subscribes to more easily.
CityLibrary Search is a great place to start your research. You can quickly discover relevant information on any topic across the library’s collections. You should use CityLibrary Search to find books and e-books in the library collection, and to access full-text journal articles from the library subscriptions.
Google Scholar is also a good place to start your research. Set up your Google Scholar at home to search for City subscriptions.
See our Research guides for information on starting your research, sources of information, literature searching, managing your research, research impact and open access. For information about researching different subjects, see our library guides home page.
SAGE Campus
SAGE Campus is a collection of approx. 35 self-paced courses covering critical skills and research methods that can be applied across all stages of academic study. Topic areas include: navigating information, data literacy, research skills, data science skills, and getting published.
There are useful courses on choosing a research question, writing a research proposal and Research design in Social Data Science and how to write a journal article. There is an indication given as to the length of time a course takes to complete, some are only an hour or two and some are longer. the content should be interactive and contain quizzes and exercises etc.
SAGE Research Methods Online
SAGE Research Methods Online is an online research methods tool designed to help you create research projects and understand the methods behind them. It includes content to support your research, from basic definitions and practical guidance for using methods to detailed case studies and theoretical discussions and advice on writing up your research. There are also videos and case studies from academics which detail their experiences and the approaches they have taken to their research.
SAGE Research Methods online has a useful Project planner which includes different stages of the research process from defining a topic, to selecting research methods to dissemination of the research outcomes and a Methods map which allows visualisation of research concepts.
See our Research skills reading list videos for some examples of video content.
Cite Them Right Online
Cite Them Right Online is a comprehensive online guide to referencing. It will help you to reference books, journals, articles, websites and other materials for your studies or research and understand how to avoid plagiarism. It includes guidance and examples for a number of different referencing styles, especially Harvard. It has recently been updated and has a new interface. See also our citing and referencing guidance.
ProQuest RefWorks
You may wish to consider how you manage your research references. RefWorks is an online reference management, writing and collaboration tool designed to help researchers at all levels gather, organise, store and share all types of information and generate citations and bibliographies. You can set up an account from the RefWorks website and export your references into it as you conduct your research.
City Research Online and open access content
There is an increasing amount of open access materials which are made freely available at the point of use for example books, journal articles and conference papers. You can set up browser extensions to make it easier to find open access content. City Research Online is a digital archive of research outputs from City staff and research students and there is a growing collection of electronic doctoral theses. See our open access guide for more information.