Open Workshops

Description: Do you have lots of open tabs and scattered PDFs? In just half an hour, discover how Zotero can take the stress out of managing your references. This quick, practical session covers the essentials of capturing, organizing, and citing your sources in just a few clicks, saving you hours of manual formatting down the road. 

To make the most of this session, download and install Zotero in advance.

Instructor(s): Allie Tatarian (they/them) is a data librarian, liaison for the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and former biomedical researcher.

Description: Searching for articles using only keywords can feel like a game of guess-and-check, especially when different authors use different words for the exact same concept. That’s where database subject headings come in. Systems like MeSH in PubMed and Emtree in Embase act like smart topic labels, gathering all relevant papers under one roof no matter how the authors phrased things. In this short, accessible session, we’ll break down what these subject headings are, why they’re a secret weapon for thorough literature searches, and how to know when it’s time to use them. 

Instructor(s): Paige Scudder (she/her) is Hirsh Library's Data and Educational Technology Librarian.

Description: Gathering research is only half the battle, keeping track of it all without losing your mind is the other. EndNote is a powerful tool, but getting started can feel a bit intimidating. Whether you are opening EndNote for the first time, managing an expanding research collection, or seeking to refine an existing workflow, this session is designed to support users at all experience levels. We’ll cover the most efficient ways to pull citations into EndNote from popular databases, along with practical strategies for structuring your library so you can find what you need quickly. Leave manual data entry behind and build a clean, manageable research collection from day one. 

To make the most of this session, download and install EndNote in advance or contact Tufts TTS.

Instructor(s): Amy E. LaVertu (she/her) serves as the librarian liaison to the Friedman School of Nutrition, as well as the departments of Geographic Medicine & Infectious Disease, and Psychiatry at the Tufts Medical Center.

Description: Writing a research paper is difficult enough without manually typing citations or struggling with reference lists. EndNote’s Cite While You Write (CWYW) plugin bridges the gap between your reference library and Microsoft Word, instantly generating citations and bibliographies as you write. Suitable for all experience levels, this practical workshop covers how to integrate EndNote into Word, manage in-text references efficiently, and effortlessly adapt your manuscript to any journal's formatting requirements. 

To make the most of this session, download and install EndNote in advance or contact Tufts TTS.

Instructor(s): Amy E. LaVertu (she/her) serves as the librarian liaison to the Friedman School of Nutrition, as well as the departments of Geographic Medicine & Infectious Disease, and Psychiatry at the Tufts Medical Center.

Description: Ready to publish, but short on funds to make it a reality?  In honor of Open Access Week, we'll spotlight the different ways Tufts supports and sustains open access and other forms of publishing.  The library's here to help broaden your research reach! 

Instructor(s): Judy Rabinowitz is the Interlibrary Loan and Scholarly Communication Librarian at the Hirsh Health Sciences Library.  She is liaison to many divisions within Tufts Medical Center and is also your go-to librarian for guidance on reusing materials under copyright, publishing, author's rights, and obtaining materials from outside the Tufts Libraries collections.

Description: With the rise of generative AI tools, non-existent references and hallucinated citations have become an increasingly common hurdle in academic research and peer review. Determining whether a citation is authentic, misattributed, or entirely fabricated requires systematic verification strategies. Designed for researchers, reviewers, and students, this workshop provides practical methods and tools to evaluate citation validity, trace phantom sources, and verify literature efficiently across major scholarly databases. 

Instructor(s): Paige Scudder (she/her) is Hirsh Library's Data and Educational Technology Librarian.

Description: Have you mastered identifying and combining search terms? ANDs and ORs will get you started, but when you're digging into comprehensive reviews or trying to track down those hard-to-find papers, you need a sharper set of tools. Join us for a practical, hands-on session where we move past keywords and explore precision techniques that make database searching faster, cleaner, and far more reliable. 

Whether you're looking to cut down on irrelevant results or make sure you aren't missing critical studies, this workshop will give you total control over your search strings. 

Instructor(s): Hannah Ellingson is a Research & Instruction Librarian and serves as the librarian liaison to dentistry.

Description: Finding uninterrupted time to focus on writing can be one of the hardest parts of the research process, and doing it in isolation makes it even tougher. This structured session, based on "Shut Up & Write", provides a low-pressure, supportive space designed to help you tackle your writing goals while connecting with a community of fellow writers. Based on the Pomodoro technique, we break the time into silent, high-focus writing sprints interspersed with brief breaks to rest, share progress, and build camaraderie. Whether you are drafting a journal manuscript, working on a thesis or capstone project, polishing a grant proposal, or organizing literature review notes, bring your work and turn your writing goals into finished pages alongside a supportive community. 

Instructor(s): Paige Scudder (she/her) is Hirsh Library's Data and Educational Technology Librarian.

Description: Finding uninterrupted time to focus on writing can be one of the hardest parts of the research process, and doing it in isolation makes it even tougher. This structured session, based on "Shut Up & Write", provides a low-pressure, supportive space designed to help you tackle your writing goals while connecting with a community of fellow writers. Based on the Pomodoro technique, we break the time into silent, high-focus writing sprints interspersed with brief breaks to rest, share progress, and build camaraderie. Whether you are drafting a journal manuscript, working on a thesis or capstone project, polishing a grant proposal, or organizing literature review notes, bring your work and turn your writing goals into finished pages alongside a supportive community. 

Instructor(s): Paige Scudder (she/her) is Hirsh Library's Data and Educational Technology Librarian.

Description: Finding uninterrupted time to focus on writing can be one of the hardest parts of the research process, and doing it in isolation makes it even tougher. This structured session, based on "Shut Up & Write", provides a low-pressure, supportive space designed to help you tackle your writing goals while connecting with a community of fellow writers. Based on the Pomodoro technique, we break the time into silent, high-focus writing sprints interspersed with brief breaks to rest, share progress, and build camaraderie. Whether you are drafting a journal manuscript, working on a thesis or capstone project, polishing a grant proposal, or organizing literature review notes, bring your work and turn your writing goals into finished pages alongside a supportive community. 

Instructor(s): Paige Scudder (she/her) is Hirsh Library's Data and Educational Technology Librarian.

Description: Finding uninterrupted time to focus on writing can be one of the hardest parts of the research process, and doing it in isolation makes it even tougher. This structured session, based on "Shut Up & Write", provides a low-pressure, supportive space designed to help you tackle your writing goals while connecting with a community of fellow writers. Based on the Pomodoro technique, we break the time into silent, high-focus writing sprints interspersed with brief breaks to rest, share progress, and build camaraderie. Whether you are drafting a journal manuscript, working on a thesis or capstone project, polishing a grant proposal, or organizing literature review notes, bring your work and turn your writing goals into finished pages alongside a supportive community. 

Instructor(s): Allie Tatarian (they/them) is a data librarian, liaison for the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and former biomedical researcher.