alternative fnd reading sources

FND reading | Margaret | January 18th, 2004

Hi all,

Since we are told not to worry about reading books that we can't get our hands on, I was wondering if anybody managed to find useful alternatives on the Internet. So far I have my hands on very little.

Thanks,

Margaret

Re: Reading & the Internet | Sally Hirst | January 18th, 2004

Dear Margaret,

If you get in touch with the library, it tells you how to do that somewhere in the study companion (I can't remember where exactly, but if I stop and look the chance of me finishing/sending this e-mail will drop to zero). They send you a password and instructions on how to get at some journals via an Athtens password and Ingenta services. You can get at ELTJ, Applied Linguistics, and Language Learning for example. It is not exhaustive, but it helps sometimes. We were sitting pretty on the reading front here in Istanbul with a good British Council library till the Consulate got bombed in November. The Council promptly closed and it is not clear if the library will ever open again (remain baffled by the political implications of this), so I have had to learn how to use this service (and Amazon) in a hurry.

Good luck.

Sally

General CD-ROMs | Simon Humphries | January 18th, 2004

Hi Margaret,

I bought the TESOL quarterly and ELT journal CD-ROMs over the internet. They are very useful because a lot of the module reading refers to them. You can search for things quickly, and any good quotes you can copy and paste into your assignments- saves time. Just remember of course to note down the correct page reference, author, date, title etc... for everything that you copy.

Good luck,

Simon H.
Japan

For Margaret- Online articles | David Anderson | January 18th, 2004

Welcome Margaret!

There was a discussion about using the net for research on Phil Quirke's support site. I've reproduced my contribution below:

I must admit that finding articles on the net had become one of the mainstays of my research for assignments. The amount of stuff that is out there is truly incredible.

With the danger of teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs...

One of the best ways I have found of ensuring that you get the kinds of hits you want is to go to www.google.com and click on the advanced link. Here you can refine your search, but more importantly, you can choose which types of file you are looking for. Choose English and .pdf (Portable Document Format) files. These are more often than not copies of articles that have been taken from more serious journals and have been transported to the web. Google offers you the useful feature of translating the page into HTML if you wish, but if you have acrobat reader (free on the Web) you can view the pages exactly as they appeared in the journal.

What is great about this is you can do a search for your keywords, and copy and paste the sections that seem most useful. No need to type in those quotations!

The full discussion can be found here.

Best regards

David Anderson

Reading & the Internet | Tessa Osborne | January 19th, 2004

Hello,

There is also a special arrangement for borrowing library books from the Aston library by mail. I've done this and it's worked well. Jenny Langford is the person to contact. She's wonderfully helpful. They can also photocopy papers or parts of books, but obviously you have to pay! Also getting journal articles that are online is not too difficult I've almost finished this course but also had a problem getting material and have had to beg, borrow or steal as well as buy sometimes... but have managed to get enough reading matter.