Library News

On May 15, Nursing/Life Sciences and Instructional Services Librarian Barbara Quintiliano presented a 45-minute session on the benefits of citation management software at the Teaching-and-Learning-Strategies event, a day of information sharing organized by the Villanova Institute for Teaching and Learning (VITAL).

Citation management software (also called reference management software) facilitates the collection and organization of references to all types of resources, whether scholarly articles, books, web pages, works of art or patents. These software products allow users to create and organize their own personal collection of references and then, with just a click or two, to format bibliographies according to any of the major documentation styles, such as MLA, APA and Chicago, or styles required by specific journals. Citation software will also work in conjunction with Microsoft Word to place footnotes or in-text citations as users type their papers.

Quintiliano demonstrated features of four popular citation management products, EndNote, RefWorks, Zotero and Mendeley. The first two are currently available to Villanova University students and faculty at no cost, and our Falvey Librarians provide instruction and support in their use. Zotero and Mendeley, two newer players in the field, have intriguing social web features that facilitate sharing and collaboration among researchers. While they can be downloaded for free, users must pay for additional storage as needed.

This comparison chart, created by MIT Libraries, can help you decide which product is best for you. For further information, please contact Research Support at ref@villanova.edu.

The lights were low in Falvey Memorial Library as Mark Twain and William Shakespeare, two literary titans, two gentlemen of consummate wit and profound insight, entered the building for the final match in the library Author Madness tournament.

Posey Whidden (class of ?)

But in the words of another literary master (whoever wrote Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome) “two men enter, one man leaves” in this high stakes competition. And that man happened to win by just a single vote!  With an ever-so-narrow victory of 42 votes to 41, Falvey Memorial Library is proud to announce that this year’s Author Madness champion is none other than Mr. William Shakespeare.

The Great Bard had some tough match-ups on his way to the title, including a game with Dr. Seuss that many expected he may not win, but in the end Shakespeare’s hold on the Western cannon proved persistent. Congratulations, Billy! We knew you had it in ya.

As an added bonus, students who voted in the final match were eligible for a raffle giveaway of a book by the winning author. This year’s prize winner is Posey Whidden. Posey will be receiving a handsome edition of the complete works of Shakespeare (1300 pages!), which we expect she’ll read in its entirety this summer. There’s nothing like King Lear for a little beach reading if you ask me.

Thanks to everyone who voted in this year’s tournament and to all the readers of the Author Madness blog series. Be sure to check the library catalogs when you’re picking out summer books, and from everyone here at Falvey Memorial Library we’d like to wish you happy reading.

Corey Waite Arnold is a writer and intern on the Communication and Publications Team. He is currently pursuing an MA in English at Villanova University.

Image courtesy of the Encyclopedia of World Biography.

Mrs. Hopewell in Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”; Sethe in Toni Morrison’s Beloved; Suyuan Woo, Lindo Jong, An-mei Hsu and Ying-ying St. Clair in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club: literature provides countless examples of this family member who fills such a crucial role in our lives.

From the classics—Gertrude in Hamlet—to the contemporary—Mrs. Iselin in Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate—some literary mothers offer unflattering illustrations. The Bible, however, presents positive role models. Jochebed made her heartrending choice to save her baby Moses’ life. St. Anne shared an uncommon bond with her daughter, Mary the mother of Jesus.

And our University’s patron saint, Augustine, had an exceptional mother: St. Monica. Her faith and her persistent dedication to her son convey a profound influence, as described in Augustine’s Confessions.

Has a mother from literature influenced you? Do you find any literary mothers particularly memorable? Please contribute your suggestions in our “comments” section.

To honor the University’s Senior-Class-Poet contestants and to commemorate National Poetry Month, the Library is publishing contestants’ poems on Falvey’s blog. The Library also has created posters for the contestants’ poems, which are displayed throughout the first floor.

Each spring semester, all seniors are encouraged to enter the Senior-Class-Poet Contest. The Department of English will announce the 2013 Senior-Class Poet later this semester.

…………  …Child

………by Alyssa Moudis

I did not think that this could happen

to someone as nice as you.

I remember shaking in the Church

As your pretty white coffin

Carried you down the aisle.

With purple flowers placed on top,

And I remembered that was your favorite color.

I never thought a funeral could be beautiful.

The altar was filled with so many flowers.

A big photo of you stood up there

But I can’t remember where.

My eyes kept returning to the white coffin.

Forever a nineteen year old,

Two months before twenty,

You will never suffer aging,

But I know you wanted kids,

And that was the part of you taken first.

With tightened fists of tissues I listened,

To the music and to the voices,

You were so loved, so admired.

And today, two of your pictures

Hang above my head, near my pillow,

While I lay across navy blue sheets.

They do not face me.

I have to look behind me,

As we do to see any memory.

Now I drive past your house in my car

And remember, driving, another thing

You won’t do again.  I wonder what

Your mother’s doing as I pass by.  And I try

To picture her, picture how it must feel

To lose a child.

A Senior-Class-Poet Contestant, Alyssa says “Poetry became my favorite area of writing when I quickly learned it is the only other place for me besides my home where I can make my own rules and create my own structure. It provides a freedom for my thoughts whether or not the words are just for me or to be seen by others. It helps me express what I cannot say logically. In poetry it’s okay to be a mess and it’s okay to not be perfect.”

Alyssa Moudis is an English major and GWS minor from Manhasset, N.Y.

On Tuesday, April 30, members of the Villanova community gathered to celebrate the launch of Aurelius, the library’s very own Digital Humanities Initiative. Those in attendance had the privilege of hearing Villanova faculty members describe fascinating projects developed in collaboration with library staff.

Laura Bang, Digital and Special Collections curatorial assistant, opened the event by asking for a definition of the Digital Humanities. Answering this request was no easy feat: because the Digital Humanities (DH) are in their nascent stages as a discipline, providing a proper definition is difficult. However, one audience member accepted the challenge, describing DH as “a digital framework for investigating the humanities, and a humanities framework for investigating digital scholarship.”

Annika Thiem, PhD, Dr. theol. and assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, was the first faculty member to present. Dr. Thiem’s project involves a full-text archiving of Jahrestage (Anniversaries), a novel by German author Uwe Johnson about New York City. Along with making the sprawling 1700 page book full-text searchable, Dr. Thiem’s project seeks to map the areas described in the novel, opening up a spatial dialogue with Johnson’s fascinating textual exploration of the city in the 1960s. Dr. Thiem remarked upon the “provisionality” of DH as a field and described some of the excitement that provisionality can inspire.

Craig Bailey, PhD, associate professor in the Department of History, presented the second project: a digital archival and local community project which explores the rich history of the city of Ardmore, Pa. Dr. Bailey teaches a junior research seminar in history, during which students will research some component of Ardmore’s history by exploring archived material and then log that material on a digital, interactive map in Aurelius web space. In this course, undergraduate history students will not only learn how to research archived materials but also create an interface for the community to access the material.

The event closed with David Uspal, senior web specialist for Library Services and Scholarly Applications, who spoke on his web-development work for these and other projects. Mr. Uspal described his experience with DH as mutually enriching, a process in which he offers technical expertise to faculty members whose unique projects, in turn, challenge him to hone his skill set and learn new techniques.

Corey Waite Arnold is a writer and intern on the Communication and Publications Team. He is currently pursuing an MA in English at Villanova University.

Last week Falvey Memorial Library hosted a conference featuring this year’s Falvey Scholars. Representatives from our Library and each of the University’s colleges consider senior class Villanova applicants on the basis of outstanding undergraduate research. This selection committee then chooses five students to be distinguished as Falvey Scholars. The competition confers awards for each of the following five disciplines: the liberal arts, science, engineering, nursing and business.

We caught up with Victoria Horn, this year’s winner from the Villanova School of Business, and asked her about her project, entitled “Examining the Experiential Pedestal: The Negative Side of Experiential Consumption.”

CA: First, congratulations on being named a Falvey Scholar—I’m sure it feels great to see all that hard work paying off.

VH: Thank you! But I can’t celebrate just yet — there’s still a lot of hard work to be done since our study is not complete. I can assure you I will still be spending many of my nights in Falvey Library.

CA: What was the first germ of thought that directed you towards your larger research project?

VH: I’ve always had an interest in Consumer Research. Actually, one of my application essays to Villanova was about branding, materialism and the psyche behind needing a product. I’d say I’ve always had a Consumer Research seed planted in me, but Dr. Chaplin’s Buyer Behavior course was the one that really made it blossom. After her class I realized I wanted to pursue a larger, more intense, research project with her outside of a classroom setting.

CA: What’s the most exciting thing you discovered during your research process?  Anything that made you feel like you were really onto something unique?

VH: One of my favorite finds was an explanation of how experiences are difficult to compare, and thus tend to be safe from disadvantageous comparisons. The author wrote that it was “literally like comparing apples to oranges.” That description really helped put into perspective how unique my research was going to be since we’re trying to apply a set of standards to something that is inherently unique to each person. I also really loved reading one author’s notion of how materialism was evolving to include more than just traits or values, but extrinsic motivation. Basically, materialism wasn’t just about collecting objects anymore but included people having extrinsic (i.e. need validation from other people) goals and motives. This piece I thought would be vital to our study and it made me feel like my notions weren’t far-fetched.

CA: Where is your favorite spot in our Library, or just on campus generally, to hunker down when you have some serious reading, writing or researching to get done?

VH: The President’s Lounge in Connelly used to be my big go-to for work, but there were many times when it was closed for unknown reasons or there was a function going on inside so I had to go to Falvey instead. I typically do work on the first floor either at one of the tables near the printers or in the 24-hour lounge.

CA: Do you have a research tool you use that you think a lot of people on campus may not know about? A database or a resource you find useful.

VH: I think one of the best things someone can utilize is the [Course] Guide page on Falvey’s website. If you don’t know exactly what database or journal to use, you can just pull that up, click the appropriate subject, find the course/professor you’re taking and you’ll see recommended databases/journals. That page saved me so much time and energy when I first started my research because I really wasn’t sure where to begin my searches.

CA: What’s the best thing you bought this year so far?

VH: I’m a bit of a fitness nut, and I found a Groupon with some friends for 10 kickboxing classes in Ardmore. The classes were amazing and I loved going with some fellow Villanovans. I actually ended up buying more classes from a friend who wasn’t too into them so I can keep going once my work subsides.

CA: Do you have a favorite app?  If you don’t use a smart phone you can pretend I meant “appetizer.”  

VH: I’m probably one of the only Falvey Scholars that doesn’t have a smart phone. But hopefully I can get my hands on one soon. My favorite appetizer would have to be a spinach and artichoke dip; it’s too good.

Corey Waite Arnold is a writer and intern on the Communication and Publications Team. He is currently pursuing an MA in English at Villanova University.

To honor the University’s Senior-Class-Poet contestants and to commemorate National Poetry Month, the Library is publishing contestants’ poems on Falvey’s blog. The Library also has created posters for the contestants’ poems, which are displayed throughout the first floor.

Each spring semester, all seniors are encouraged to enter the Senior-Class-Poet Contest. The Department of English will announce the 2013 Senior-Class Poet later this semester.

……………Hullabaloo

……….by Christi Danner

our argyle eyes and two hands full of dust:

all we had.

and Silence. Silence that cramped

against ‘Moderne White’ painted plaster

into ‘Downy Gray’ sooted corners

and had to stick its elbows and feet out the windows

of our assembly line house.

………..[ if you look long enough into the void

............and decorate it and dust it every Monday

............the void begins to look back through you ]

…………we named it Fred.

mornings were streaming sunlight and its sticky skin

and playing possum under ‘Haven Green’ paisley sheets.

we spent our days like dogs in heat and our nights

…………orphans

one Saturday afternoon, in January, maybe,

(the month of sleet and gift receipts and whiskey)

we dropped a “Carnival Orange” lit match

on the hardwood kitchen floor.

…………our lips met

…………soft

…………melting

…………in the undulating haze and heat and

…………alien orange world

…………of raw throats and roasted eyes.

there we gave birth

to our remains.

…………we left the scene, our moonlit eyes and two hands, hand in hand.

………………………………………………………………………………..all we had.

A Senior-Class-Poet Contestant, Christi says, “Poetry, like real life, is often very confusing. Unlike life, it’s organized, even if the logic is hidden. I like poetry because it lets me put complicated thoughts into concise lines and words.”

Christi Danner is an English major from Allentown, Pa.

To honor the University’s Senior-Class-Poet contestants and to commemorate National Poetry Month, the Library is publishing contestants’ poems on Falvey’s blog. The Library also has created posters for the contestants’ poems, which are displayed throughout the first floor.

Each spring semester, all seniors are encouraged to enter the Senior-Class-Poet Contest.

……………………Untitled #1

……………………by Jack Clark

A cool breeze strikes his face as he walks down the street,
The ever persistent rain soaking his clothes as he reaches for his mittens.
Two holes in the right mitten,
Enough to remind him that he is in fact cold.
The left one is missing the tips of the pointer and middle finger.
It’s February 23rd and it’s raining.
He thinks of nothing but how wet his socks are inside what he calls shoes.
No laces, holes in the sole, the cloth that was at one time white is now brown.
And to think it’s only Monday.
To go home would mean going back to the park, the subway, the alley way.
He turns around to head in what seems to be the right direction.
His hair collects the rain and lets it slowly run down his face into his beard and eventually down to his shirt
His watch reads quarter past 7.
The subway is only a half a mile away and he can already feel the warmth of the dry shelter.
The smell of freshly cooked hot dogs emanates from the underground.
A smell so delicious he can taste it with every inhale.
As he enters the subway he curiously looks around for company,
A middle aged, overweight police officer, an anxious looking woman and the hot dog vendor.
With a sigh he walks over to the vendor and asks him how much a hot dog is.
$4.
Four dollars. Four dollars.
He turns around in time to see the train leave,
Leaving him alone in the subway to look for a place to call home.

“Poetry has always been a great way for me to capture the world I see around me and manifest it into something tangible. People channel this desire in many different ways, in many different artistic manners, and for me that artistic manner happens to be poetry. The story in this poem, which I have left Untitled, is not something I have directly experienced, but everyone has seen a homeless person; everyone has walked by a homeless person and made that split second decision: do I give him or her the two dollars in my pocket? I thought it would be powerful to write a poem from a homeless man’s perspective, albeit it is written from the third person; I tried to capture the feeling and emotion so the reader could empathize with this anonymous man and maybe understand his plight.”

Jack Clark is an English and economics major from Marblehead, Mass.: a small north-shore fishing town that borders the infamous “Witch Town” of Salem, Mass.

Wait!!  Before you make the mad dash to enjoy all those delicious salsa combos you made to kick off your annual “Cinco de Mayo” celebration, I have some little-known facts to share with you about this day.

If you thought Cinco de Mayo was Mexico’s Independence Day, you would be mistaken! Mexico’s Independence Day is September 16th. Yup, you heard me. It was on that September day, in 1810, Mexicans declared their independence from Spain, which had controlled the territory referred to as “New Spain,” since 1521 when Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire. If you plan to add Independence Day, aka “Grito de Dolores,” to your celebration list, be sure to check out the article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica[1] on Mexico’s struggles!

So what’s so great about the 5th of May? Although it is not an official holiday in Mexico, it does commemorate the Mexicans’ victory over the French on May 5, 1862, in the town of Puebla; thus, the holiday is called “El Día de la Batalla de Puebla,” and there are celebrations. The Mexican-American community, from the western states, began the observance shortly after the event. Ultimately, the day’s events evolved within the US as recognition of the Mexican culture and heritage.  Moreover, the U.S. Congress recently issued  resolutions[2] recognizing the historical significance of Cinco de Mayo. The Congressional Record, for the House of Representatives, recorded on June 7, 2005, a concurrent, non-binding resolution recognizing the historical significance of the day,[3]

Selected resources about “Cinco de Mayo”:

Arellano, Gustavo.  Interview by Michel Martin. Arts & Life.  Natl. Public Radio, 5 May

2011. NPR.org. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

“Cinco de Mayo.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic

Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

Ganster, Paul. “Cinco de Mayo.” Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture.

Ed. Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. 413. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

Hamnett, Brian. “Puebla, Battle and Siege of.” Encyclopedia of Latin American History

and Culture. Ed. Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. 401-402. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

“Monthly Record of Current Events: Mexico.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. 25.146

(1862): 261. Making of America, 1815-1901. Web. 29 April 2013.

“News from San Francisco.” New York Times (1857-1922): 1. Jun 01 1862. ProQuest.

Web. 27 Apr. 2013.

Pérez, Daniel Enrique. “Cinco de Mayo.” Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y

Literatura 27.1 (2011): 210+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

Recognizing Historical Significance Of The Mexican Holiday Of  Cinco De Mayo of

2007.  H.R. Con. Res. 44. 7 June 2005. Web.

What do Jane Goodall, Martin Luther King Jr., Vladimir Putin, Stephen Harper, George Harrison, J.K. Rowling, Maureen Dowd, and Joe Biden all have in common?

All of the above, as well as countless others, have been accused of plagiarizing their sources.

While we tend to think of plagiarism as some secret process done in the dark of night to cover for shoddy work, it is possible to engage in plagiarism simply by trying to incorporate information from sources you did not fully read or understand. Without a good grasp of your source and your topic, it can become all too easy to plagiarize your source without intending to be dishonest.

With this in mind we welcome Steven Schultz from the Writing Center with a few words about how to effectively use and attribute sources in your next paper.

Start by embracing the research process. Locate sources early and incorporate them into the very first draft of a paper. This approach produces better writing than shoehorning a couple quotes into the final version and gives you time to understand each source and its relationship to your topic. Sure, some sources—numbers, data, and statistics—may appear straightforward enough, but complex thinkers such as St. Augustine, Friedrich Nietzsche and Adrienne Rich probably won’t be. Also, use sources for more than just garden-variety support by including some whose perspective on your topic diverges from your own. Critical debate enriches a paper.

Writers use three techniques to integrate outside sources: summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation. An effective writer chooses among them like a painter chooses among paintbrushes with bristles ranging from broad to fine: each technique conveys a different level of detail. A summary offers the broadest overview of a source by restating a main idea, thesis statement, or a lengthy passage. Think of summary as the view from an airplane cruising at 30,000 feet: big features are enhanced but small ones may be invisible. Summary is effective technique for condensing long sources such as a research study or a book chapter.

Quotation is the opposite of summary: it preserves the original writer’s exact words and reproduces all the original detail. Quote when rephrasing an idea would lessen its impact or when including the original writer’s words enhances your credibility. We quote Ernest Hemingway, not paraphrase him.

Paraphrasing someone else’s idea means being able to explain it in your own words, not just restate it. If a writer includes an idea from an outside source by changing a few though not all of the words from the original but still provides a citation, is that an acceptable paraphrase? Not so much. Faulty paraphrases like this are called “patchwriting,” a term used to describe writing that attempts to paraphrase a source but fails because it either 1) retains most of its wording from the original source or 2) replaces select key terms with synonyms but otherwise reproduces the source’s syntax. Both are problems and usually happen when a writer doesn’t fully comprehend the material she or he is attempting to paraphrase. In fact, done well, paraphrasing is a great way to draw attention to a particular facet of an idea or offer a new interpretation of it.

Lastly, vary how you use these techniques. Not only will it make your writing style more engaging, but by adapting your technique to each source’s purpose, you’ll demonstrate to your audience that you’ve thought about each source’s unique relationship to your argument and therefore be more persuasive.

Are you having problems working with your sources? If so it is time to contact the Writing Center and make an appointment to work with one of their phenomenal tutors. Appointments can be made by phone at 610-519-4604 or in person at the Writing Center in the Learning Commons on Falvey’s 2nd floor. Act fast though because appointment slots fill quickly.

Robin Bowles is a research librarian on the Academic Integration Team and a liaison librarian to the Villanova University School of Nursing.