Effective research requires more than just using Google or Google Scholar, as these tools may miss essential research. Instead, utilizing university library databases like ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Inspec, and Web of Science can provide more comprehensive results. Additionally, employing strategies like synonym searches, footnote chasing, and exploring citation maps can significantly enhance the research process.

1. Effective Searching

2. Should We Just Use Google?
 Many of us jump immediately onto Google or
Google Scholar
 We’ll find some helpful hits
 But we may have to spend hours weeding
through the hits
 Google is not exhaustive so we potentially
miss a great deal of research
 So what’s the alternative?

3. The Alternative
 Target your research
 I can help you ensure that you’re finding the
majority of what is available on your topic
 How?
 Let’s begin with the University Libraries
website: http://search.library.cmu.edu

4.  Click on Articles & Databases and then click on Databases A-Z

5. Choosing the Best Tools
 The Libraries have hundreds of databases
with a significant amount of research not
found in Google and Google Scholar
 If trying to be exhaustive in your research,
then for computer science topics, search:
 ACM Digital Library
 IEEE Xplore
 INSPEC
 Web of Science

6. Why Not Just One Tool?
 We should search all four of those databases
rather than just one
 None of them covers everything that’s
published (just like Google)
 They have some overlap
 But we need to search all of them to ensure
we don’t miss any important research

7. Web of Science Searching
 Let’s experiment with Web of Science (WoS)
to see how we can target our research
 Important: when performing a search in any
database, experiment using a variety of
synonyms
 Sometimes we’re not always quite sure what
those synonyms may be

8. Sample Search
 Let’s search on: keystroke dynamics
 Sometimes we’re searching on a topic that
uses various words to describe it
 So to target our research, try to pin down the
various words and phrases to use
 The next slide is an example hit
 I highlighted in red synonyms we should use

10. Honing Our Search
 So let’s redo our search using some of those
synonyms
 I’ve highlighted how to correctly link the
words in our search

11. Refining Our Search
 On the left side, WoS provides a wide variety
of ways to refine our results
 Under Document Types, we see that the
most hits are Articles and Proceedings
Papers (from conferences)
 But what it we only want a review, we could
choose that option

12. Refining Our Search
 We see which authors and what sources,
i.e., journals, conferences, and book series
have published the most on this topic
 These are all ways to refine our search to
better target what precisely we need

13. Additional Tools
 On the right side of the window, near the bottom are two
important tools to help us find more research
 References: the bibliography the author listed at the end of
their article
 Always look at these references because they will lead you to
more hits on this topic
 Look at the bibliographies in those articles as well
 This process is called Footnote Chasing
 Related Records may also help connect
you to additional research

14. Reverse Citations
 One of the most powerful tools of WoS is its
ability to show us how frequently an article
has been cited by others
 On the right side we see the quantity of
citations, as well as the individual articles
titles
 We can click on any of them to go directly to
those citations

16. New Visual Tool
 WoS is offering a fascinating new tool that is
still in beta
 It shows us visually a citation map, i.e., a trail
of who has cited whom on this topic
 You can view citations going forwards and
backwards
 It’s an extremely powerful tool that we’re just
beginning to learn how to use fully

18.  Here’s an example of a 1-generation citation map for an article

19. Move Onto Other Resources
 All of what we’ve covered here are tools
available in Web of Science
 I encourage you to search the other
databases mentioned earlier
 You need to ensure you do not miss anything
of importance in your research

20. For Additional Help
 Remember that at any time, feel free to
contact me for additional help:
Missy Harvey
Computer Science Librarian
Email: harvey@andrew.cmu.edu
Blog: http://cslibrarian.net/
Website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~missy/