As Twitter grows in popularity, more and more researchers and scientists are using the social network to communicate and discuss their research. This rise has created a demand for official formats to cite Tweets in scholarly papers. Tweet2Cite generates a citation from the URL of a tweet in either MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association) formats.

Just paste the URL of a tweet into the box provided and watch as your citation is spit back in the appropriate style to be used in your paper. Hopefully there will be more resources like Tweet2Cite to come that supply citations in formats other than MLA and APA.

Don’t forget to follow the MSK Library Twitter stream @MSKCC_Library to keep abreast of cancer research news, training workshops, Center news, useful updates for keeping current, and to tweet with us about your scholarly work!

By now we’re all pretty familiar with Google Scholar as a helpful search engine for finding scholarly information on the web. An up and coming competitor to the Google Scholar enterprise is Q-Sensei Scholar. This online tool is also a meta-search engine that’s designed to pick up scholarly articles and proceedings from a set number of  reputable sources. Here’s the list for your reference:

• arXiv – preprints of scientific papers in the fields of Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, and Statistics
• Ingenta Connect – scholarly Financial and Business content
• Library of Congress – books of all fields
• PubMed – journal articles in the Life and Biomedical Sciences
• RePEc – research papers, working papers, preprints, and journal articles in Economics

Q-Sensei Scholar also offers users the option of creating a free account to track, save, and monitor customized searches. Take a look at the FAQ page for more information on registering as well as other unique features of the search engine.

Keeping current on a topic using Google just got a lot easier with Google Alerts. Google itself is an easy tool to search and use, but sometimes the overwhelming number of results retrieved can be off-target, far too daunting, or both. Google Alerts can help to track a concept more efficiently and push results to you more regularly without having to run the same search manually whenever you would like to see what’s recent.

Just like Google.com’s interface, the Alerts webpage is simple and easy to understand, though it contains more options than the standard search box that you’re probably used to. One of the biggest benefits of using Google Alerts is the ability to designate what type of content you would like to see in the results retrieved. Everything, News, Blogs, Videos, Discussions, and Books are the current available options. You can then choose how often you would like to receive the alert (as-it-happens, once a day, or once a week) and how many results you want (only the best or all). Enter your desired email address and that’s it! You will then begin receiving results on your query via the email address provided.

For more tips and suggestions on keeping current with the medical news or literature fill out our Ask-A-Librarian form or call Reference at 212-639-7439 to set up a consultation to discuss your needs.