ReMentURS (REmote MENToring of Undergraduate Research Students)

Week 3: Scientific Literature

What is Scientific Literature?   (Audio and Reflection Statement)

Literature Search:

Where do I find Scientific Literature?

 - Readings (see below) 

 - Worksheet

How do I find Scientific Literature?

• How to Develop a Search Query from a Research Question

     (Video and worksheet)

• Developing Your Search Strategy and Search Techniques.                              -(Readings (see below) 

Week Three Survey

Where do I find Scientific Literature?

Scientific Literature is available in multiple places. You probably have some experience finding it already. The trick is not necessarily finding the literature, BUT...

1. Finding Literature that is accessible: Because many of those peer-reviewed scholarly articles are published by Academic Journals, they are not freely available! Publishers charge subscription fees to access specific journals, and these fees are often in the thousands just for one journal! 
2. Finding Literature that fits the scope of your project: Many students complain that this is the most difficult aspect of literature searches - finding articles they feel are relevant to the topic they are exploring. 
3. Understanding the Literature well enough to use it effectively and ethically: You will be able to learn and practice some techniques and tips to make this aspect of a literature review a little bit easier, but it does take some practice! 

Lists of places to find Scientific Literature

Before we move forward, here is a list of possible places to find scientific literature.

• Google
  • Especially Google Scholar
• Libraries
  • in print journals
  • electronically through databases and institutional repositories
  • by utilizing InterLibrary Loan and borrowing from another institution
  • Government Documents  (Georgia Southern is a Government Document Depository)
• Professors/Research Mentors
  • you may be handed specific articles to read for class or as you begin working on a research project
• Publishers Websites
  • you may be able to access some articles directly from the publishers. However, you may also be asked to pay for access to these. 
• Web
  • You may find access to some scientific literature linked through websites such as professional entities, industry, blog postings, etc. Again, you may find full access, but you may only find access to an abstract without paying. 

How do I Find Scientific Literature

Developing an Effective Search Strategy

Finding Scientific Literature involves searching. Searching requires developing an effective search query.  Watch the video, or read the transcript. Review the search strategy tips provided. Then complete the worksheet on Developing a Search Query from a Research Question. 

Developing an Effective Search Strategy Involves: 

• Identifying the key search concepts

• Identifying related terms to the key search concepts

• Using standard search structures to broaden and narrow your search results

While there is not ONE right way to do a search, the strategies identified on this page will improve your results!

Limiting and Expanding Your Search Using And, Or, Not...

Boolean searching involves adding or subtracting terms to your search to either broaden or narrow your search. It uses three terms (AND, OR, NOT) to tell the search engine or database whether to include or eliminate certain terms.                                

AND/OR The Difference

Remember, OR is going to expand your results. It is great for the following situations:

• To retrieve all members of an entire class of items - be sure to include the name of the class!  Citrus OR Oranges OR Lemons OR Tangerines OR Grapefruit.
• Search both the acronym or initialism and the full name:  HPLC OR high-performance liquid chromatography
• Search both Common and Scientific Names: Poison Oak OR Toxicodendron diversilobum
• Search similar concepts *like we did above!   Salty OR Salinity
• And sometimes you can actually use acronyms to fully express your concept:  dehydration OR hydration,   fertility OR sterility

AND will narrow your results! 

Salty AND Sweet:  The database will pull items that only deal with both of these in the same source! 

Using Quotation Marks in Your Search:

Quotation Marks can be used to identify Phrases.

By using quotations marks, you can tell the computer to only bring back pages with the terms you typed in the exact order you typed them.

"skin cancer"

Instead of 

skin AND cancer

"green technologies" 

Instead of 

green AND technologies

Using Truncation in your Search:

Truncation allows you to search various forms of a word by finding alternative endings.

The character (*) is placed at the end of the first few letters of a search term or at the end of its root.

Chemi* retrieves

Chemist/s

Chemistry

Chemical/s