How not to reinvent the wheel - Literature Searching for ENCH400 2012

How not to reinvent the wheelor Literature Searching for ENCH400 2012

Our mission is…  Literature review on a topic  Proposal  Lots of research  Mass balances – calculations  Look for different processing routes  Oral presentation and report  Experiments  Report

We already know... We get information from:  Internet – Google, Wikipedia  People – Lecturers, mentors, other students  Library resources:  Textbooks  MultiSearch  ScienceDirect  Google Scholar  Journals (browsing by subject)

We need to know...  How to find papers  Structure and layout of the literature review  What to include and what not to include  How do you know if it’s a good article or not?  Methods to include the information without directly copying

The Literature You

The Research ProcessDefine your topic What information do you need? Who would have written about it? Where? Find information Judge it – is it reliable? relevant? – does it point in new directions? – is it enough? or do you still need more? Analyse and synthesise Cite all sources!

Key reference material

Key databasesCompendex aka Engineering journal/conference articles “who’s cited who”, review articlesSciFinder Chemistry journal articles & data “who’s cited who”, review articlesWeb of Science aka General science/engineering articles “who’s cited who”, review articlesScopus General science/engineering articles “who’s cited who”, review articlesMultiSearch Searches widely * Off-campus, log-in via top barGoogle Scholar Searches widely, “who’s cited who” * Edit Settings -> Library Links

Choosing keywords What criteria do I use in choosing keywords to search for? • Choose the main words from the initial question If not enough results: • Use fewer words (or broader synonyms) • Use the root of words – eg magnetic*, produc* If too many results: • Use more words (or more specific synonyms) • Exclude subjects – NOT methanol (Google Scholar uses -methanol instead) • Search for a phrase with quotes eg “lysine production”

Evaluating resourcesIs it… and... relevant? Who is it written for? basic/advanced? What kind of research is it? up-to-date? How far along is the research? What questions haven’t they answered yet? accurate?

Filtering results How do I refine/filter the search results to get useful and reliable resources? • Read the title • Read the abstract • Check the keywords – can use these in new searches • Check the article’s reference list for older articles • Check who else has cited the article for newer research • Use the “Refine” column to narrow by subject, author, year, document type (eg “review” articles for an overview of the state of research)

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How not to reinvent the wheel - Literature Searching for ENCH400 2012

by Deborah Fitchett on Jul 12, 2012

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