Category Archives: Knowledge Bytes

Who said that? Librarian tips for verifying quotes.


In a digital world where famous quotations are used in memes and inspirational social media posts, often, like a game of telephone, quotes evolve into something that differs significantly from the original words spoken or written. Verifying the authenticity of quotes can take time and effort. Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head of Humanities and Social Sciences and Librarian for Literature, has provided tips and tricks to streamline the search process!


Tips:

  • When using an online authentication website, i.e., The Quotations Page, don’t use the whole quote because you might get inaccurate results if it’s incorrect. Consider using a word or phrase from the quote plus the author’s name.
  • Try searching using a quotation reference volume (such as the Oxford Essential Quotations) available digitally from the library. Digital reference books can be searched using the same method described above: author’s name plus a keyword or phrase from the original quote.
  • Another quick tool to consider is using Google Books and searching by the author or person’s name plus keywords or phrases from the quote. If the quote exists, an excerpt is likely going to come up. If cited, you can follow the citation from the eBook to the original document where the words were issued, such as correspondence, diaries, speeches, interviews, etc.

    Most of all, don’t get discouraged; sometimes, it is impossible to nail down a precise quotation. Recently, Arianne worked with a scholar trying to verify a quote attributed to Edward O. Wilson: “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.” She hunted for the quote in the general quote collections, science-specific quotation sources, and Google Books, which cited Biophilia; however, Biophilia did not provide this quotation, leaving the origins of those words as a mystery indicating somewhere along the way words were modified. The scholar went so far as to reach out to Edward O. Wilson, who was unsure of its origins! This example demonstrates the complexities of verifying quotations and that, occasionally, there’s no definitive answer. Still, it is always good to do due diligence before using a quotation in a paper or article. We hope with these tips, it may be possible for you to get at close as possible to the approximation of who said what! For more suggestions, visit Arianne’s Literature in English research guide.


     

Find Article PDFs Faster with This Browser Plugin

Guest post by Amanda Rizki, Cary Gentry, and Sujeit Llanes, practicum students in our Assessment and User Experience Department.


Are you one of the many students who prefer to browse the web for scholarly articles? 

Do you use Wikipedia as your starting point for research? 

Do you do most of your research before you come to the library’s website?

Maybe you are frustrated by having to relocate each article you find cited on scholarly websites within the Duke Libraries’ databases? 

Nomad Plug-In for Chrome is the tool for you! Nomad is a browser plugin for Google Chrome that helps you find journal article PDFs quickly and easily. Nomad connects your Duke Libraries access to articles found while browsing in Wikipedia, PubMed, or directly on publishers’ websites. 

Once you install the plugin, it will scan the sites you read online for journal article identifiers. When it sees an article that is available through Duke, it provides easy PDF or link access with a consistent, easy-to-find button. Links bring you to a fully accessible article page – no further login required. PDFs can be downloaded directly to your computer. 

Nomad was created by Third Iron, the same company that makes LibKey and BrowZine. The plug-in does not collect any information about you, so the tool is safe to use with your personal information and Duke log-in. While Nomad reads web pages for articles that Duke Library provides access to, it is still your Duke credentials that allow the link or download to move forward. 

An example of Nomad at work in a Wikipedia article about cardiovascular disease.

 

Nomad provides one-click access to articles in PubMed search results.

 

Get Nomad for Chrome today!


Need more assistance setting up this plug-in?  Keep reading!

Plug-ins are extra bits of software that you can add to your internet browser – in this case, to Google Chrome. Google organizes all of the plug-ins available for their browser on a site called Chrome Web Store. This plug-in, Nomad, is free, but some plug-ins must be purchased. 

1. Open Google Chrome. If you have not already installed it, Chrome is available via Google. 

2. In Chrome, type “Chrome libkey nomad” in the address bar and choose the first result. Or open this link.

3. Click the “Add to Chrome” button in the upper right corner of the page:

4. A small popup window will appear. The browser will ask for you to verify that you want to add the plug-in (called the extension) to your computer. 


5. After the plug-in installs, it will prompt you to select your institution.  Choose “Duke University” from the dropdown menu. 

6. The plugin is now ready to use. You can close the window and proceed to browse normally.