Whether you are starting your first research project or have written a dozen articles, you can benefit from a consultation with a librarian. It’s free and you can book online in advance according to your schedule.
Librarians can meet with you virtually or in-person.
Video abstracts are a great way to increase your research impact. A video abstract allows you to explain research in your own words, encourage people to engage in your research, and increase your research visibility. Finally, video abstracts allow you to reach a wider demographic – allowing you to reach your community in a wider scale.
Tips for creating a video abstract:
Keep it short, ideally 2-3 minutes.
Clearly define the problem, your research, and the broader impact.
Be accessible – use clear language and be succinct. Video abstracts are a great way to engage a larger audience.
Include images – pictures, graphs, charts or tables.
End with a call to action – encourage people to read your article!
Below are a few examples of video abstracts that successfully tell a story.
One way to improve your research impact is to utilize free social media tools like Twitter, a microblogging service that makes it easy to engage with researchers and funders alike. It helps raise your professional profile and can help increase your Almetrics score.
Why should you utilize Twitter?
You can quickly follow emerging news and trends in your field
Connect and converse with people, inside and outside of your field, regarding your research
Increase your research visibility
Find out about conferences, calls for abstracts, and funding opportunities
How to make Twitter work for you?
Add a short bio and #hashtag your research keywords.
Follow people, journals, and funders in your field – you can search for them by entering terms in the search box. Twitter will curate a specific feed on your homepage of relevant information, called “tweets”.
Share! Make tweets about recent articles in your field – written by you or others. Your opinion on developments in your field or on others’ research or news and blog posts relevant to your research. Here are some tips to make your tweets gain traction:
Use #hashtags to ensure you’re reaching the right community and @tag anyone relevant to the tweet.
Pictures and infographics are engaging and increase the likelihood of engagement.
Encourage discussion by asking thoughtful questions or thought-provoking commentary.
Your research is important and we want to help you ensure it is making an impact. ORCiD is a great way to start increasing your research impact with minimal effort.
What is ORCiD?
An ORCiD ID is a permanent unique identifier for researchers. Using your ORCID iD is more accurate and secure than a name: many people can have the same name but each ORCID iD is unique. They protect your unique scholarly identity and help you keep your publication record up-to-date with very little effort.
Why should you get an ORCiD ID?
ORCiD ID’s are permanent and will follow you throughout your entire career.
ORCiD is increasingly used by individuals (e.g. as a signature in emails) and systems (e.g. in Scopus, PubMed), enabling recognition and discoverability.
ORCiD automatically updates your profile from other systems – saving you time.
“The health sciences library is a jewel in the Mizzou library system,” says Dr. Vicki Conn, Professor Emerita at the Sinclair School of Nursing.
As a faculty member at the nursing school, Dr. Conn focused on why patients wouldn’t take their prescribed medications and finding ways to increase exercise in chronically ill adults. Her research spanned over many years and credits Diane Johnson with helping her throughout the journey.
“I was the principal investigator of three National Institutes of Health [NIH] R01 grants for enormous projects and [Diane’s] expertise was critical for securing funding,” relays Dr. Conn. Diane remained on the grants after the funding was secured, being named a co-investigator to assist with the “hard work,” as Dr. Conn calls it.
Diane Johnson
“[Diane] worked with my research staff to facilitate our easy access to the results of searches. For one of our projects, we evaluated over 37,000 potential studies for inclusion. The vast majority of those 37,000 were located by Diane. Diane was a central member of our research team.” With Diane as a member of the research team and closely working with the other researchers, allowed her to completely understand the project. Diane could easily adapt and change with search as needed and know the exact information the team found most beneficial.
Dr. Conn’s and her team also made great use of the library’s interlibrary loan (ILL) department, requesting articles if they needed to be reviewed in their entirety. If the articles weren’t available on campus, ILL borrowed them from other libraries, making sure Dr. Conn and her research team had access to the articles necessary for their grants.
These services were something Dr. Conn highly valued over the twenty years of working with Diane and the library. “I suggest people become acquainted with a librarian. It is very important for the librarian to understand your program of research. A librarian who completely understands your program of research can by a wonderful research collaborator.”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Each month we provide an overview of University of Missouri authored articles in medicine and related fields as well as a featured article from a School of Medicine author with the highest journal impact factor.
This month’s featured article:
“Mechanisms of Connexin-Related Lymphedema”, was co-authored by Dr. Jorge A. Castorena-Gonzalez , Dr. Scott D. Zawieja , Dr. Min Li , Dr. Luis A. Martinez-Lemus and Dr. Michael J. Davis of the Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology as well as Dr. Roger de la Torre of the Department of Medicine. The article was published in Circulation Research (impact factor of 15.211 in 2017).
Dr. Elizabeth Malm-Buatsi didn’t know where to turn when she wanted to improve her standing as a researcher. As the only pediatric urologist at MU HealthCare, and often called away for surgeries, she had no built-in research team she could lean on. After flying solo for a few months, she found herself on the verge of abandoning projects she was passionate about, frustrated by the research process and unsure how to proceed. Luckily, a colleague suggested she contact Diane Johnson at the Health Sciences Library. Dr. Malm-Buatsi says that initial meeting was absolutely lifechanging
When she first contacted Diane, Dr. Malm-Buatsi was creating an educational flyer to give to parents about newborn circumcisions. In order to provide this vital information to parents about the process, she needed to find the best evidence-based research, but she already conducted a literature search and found no information after several hours of searching. Diane, however, was able to find the information in the matter of minutes, at least that’s how Dr. Malm-Buatsi describes it. “Ever since meeting Diane, my outlook on research projects has changed,” she says, “and I’ve learned to enjoy the process. She makes sure to keep me on track, makes the process easier, and helps me think critically about what I’m working on.”
Diane Johnson
Diane’s assistance wasn’t limited to the patient education project. Dr. Malm-Buatsi was also in the midst of applying for an internal grant related to the urinary microbiome. Diane conducted literature searches and created an EndNote Library, not only adding relevant articles, but also pointing out the most relevant sections of information. “Diane was able to cut the time I would’ve spent on researching in half.” Dr. Malm-Buatsi says the grant proposal was recently accepted, and she expects Diane will still be an integral contributor of the project. Diane has also found several additional grant opportunities for Dr. Malm-Buatsi to pursue.
Two projects wasn’t enough for Dr. Malm-Buatsi, though. She also wanted to assess residents’ satisfaction with and the perceived usefulness of an online surgical training system, including a pre-surgery assessment that allows the residents to set goals and view videos before surgery. They determined the best way to capture these qualitative results was developing a survey. Caryn Scoville, Information Services Librarian, consulted with Dr. Malm-Buatsi, designed the survey in Qualtrics, and distributed it to the residents. Dr. Malm-Buatsi and her colleagues submitted an abstract about their system, and although it hasn’t been accepted yet, she is positive it will, in large part because of Caryn’s behind-the-scenes work.
Caryn Scoville
Looking to strengthen your own research profile? Dr. Malm-Buatsi suggests consulting with your librarians from day one of your project and learning how they can contribute to your research process. “They are so open and I feel I can bounce my ideas off of them,” she says. Dr. Malm-Buasi has also discovered an unanticipated benefit: “Now that I am in their minds, I often receive emails with suggestions or pieces of information related to my projects.Their help has had a huge impact on my career.”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Finding sources that meet the expectations of your professor may seem like a daunting task. However, Mizzou Libraries provides tools to simplify the process of finding high-quality, scholarly sources.
After you search the main search bar on the library homepage, you can limit your results to peer-reviewed sources by clicking this checkbox:
This way, you know the articles you’re viewing have been peer-reviewed and are scholarly.
Other databases may offer a similar option, but each is arranged and designed independently, so the wording or location may be different.
One more pedantic note–it is ultimately your job to determine the quality of source. If you are unsure, you can always chat with a librarian or come to the Research Help and Information Desk for assistance. We are happy to help!
