2. What we’ll do today
Scientific or Systematic Literature
review review
Research review
Choose a topic
Background research
Using correct resources
Managing what you find
6. Literature Review
What is it?
Survey of sources, scholarly
articles, government
docs, books, dissertations, conference
proceedings…
Overview of significant literature on a
topic often limited to a specific time
period
7. Scientific Literature Review
What is it not?
An academic research paper which is
most often constructed as an argument
and the information you are seeking is to
support said argument
An annotated bibliography as most
bibliographies contain sources found and
often read but not cited in the text
8. What is it?
Whatever your professors tell you
they want!
Bates College Department of Biology
University Library, UC Santa Cruz
Medical Sciences Divsion of University
of Oxford
Systematic Literature Review
9. Choose a topic, broad is okay
Do your background research
Identify key words and phrases to aid in
searching
Books
Professor
Librarian
How to begin
10. So what next?
• Start big doing background reading
• Look for patterns
• Look at reference sources, your textbooks, LC
subject heading list, subject headings in
research tools to establish a controlled
vocabulary Ask a librarian
• Look at thesaurus in the research tools such
MeSH for Medline or CINAHL Headings (CH)
11. Google and Wikipedia aren’t intrinsically
evil, just use them for the correct purpose in
your research.
Internet Tools
12. Google Scholar
ONU buys
Full-text
database
OhioLINK
Permits
Google to
link to full-text
Google asks
to link to
content
ONU user sees
licensed full-text
articles
Run Google
Scholar
Search
Note: If
working
off
campus
please
see the
“Google
scholar”
tab at the
Research
Guide for
BIOL 3241
Internet Tools
13. Critically analyzing web sources
What? is the page/site about
Who? created and maintains this site
Where? Is the information coming from
Why? Is the information presented on the web
When? Was the page created or last updated
How? Accurate or credible is the page
From the University of Wisconsin
Library, worksheet for evaluating web sites
www.malepregnancy.com
14. What do I do next?
Use library resources to continue your
background research.
16. What is included?
POLAR
Article-level searching for all EBSCO
databases
Article-level searching for a variety of other
databases:
JSTOR, Hoover’s, AccessPharmacy, etc.
Title-level searching for most other
databases: IEEE, CIAO, Proquest Nursing &
Allied Health
OhioLink central catalog
22. Things to Remember
Facets are your Friend: After you
search, limit your results to what you really
want
A tool not a solution: This is not the
solution to everything
Ask the librarians for help
There will still be some small changes
coming
23. Scholarly, Peer-reviewed
Popular
Periodical means the
same as Magazine
Usually magazines are
more “popular”
Journals
Scholarly or Professional
Peer reviewed
See Research Guide for
BIOL 3241 for this and
other Handouts
25. •Looks in several locations (usually
subject, article title, abstracts or contents)
•Does not require an exact match
•Generates comparatively large number of
hits (not precise)
•Good if you are not familiar with
terminology
•Look for the same or similar words which
keep appearing
Find a Book∞POLAR
26. •Looks in one place – subject
•Usually requires an exact match
between your term and a pre-set list of
terms
•Precise
•Can be used after keyword search has
identified specific subjects
•Click on the “Find Similar Items” link found on
each item record
Find a Book∞POLAR
27. Find a Book∞OhioLink
Materials owned by all Ohio
colleges, universities, several public libraries
Ca. 10 million items
Link from POLAR permits you to submit
requests. Available from Heterick home page
Most requests arrive in 2-3 working days
No charge
Limited to 100 items at a time
MAY RENEW UP TO 4 TIMES
28. What do I do next?
Use databases to find articles based on your
search strategy
34. CINAHL plus with full text
MEDLINE with full text
Proquest Nursing and Allied Health
Scopus
Biological Abstracts with BIOSIS
Preview
ISI Science Citation Index
Databases
35. You can cut and paste
from most any
source, so just fill in all
the lines you can.
ISSN is the unique
number every
periodical is assigned
so it’s great if you can
include that in your
request. Be sure to
only use the print
ISSN, not the on-line
ISSN.
InterLibrary Loan
36. “General” databases – searchable
by subject, title, author, etc.
Citation databases – as above but
tells you who has cited a particular
article - significance
Citation Databases
37. Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-
EXPANDED)--1980-present
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)--
1980-present
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)-
-1980-present
Combined into product, Web of Knowledge
Citation Databases (ISI)
38. Your Search Terms Your Search Terms
Keyword / subject
Author
Title
Etc
KW / subject
Author
Title
Etc.
Sources
(citations)
used by
authors
themselves
General or Subject
specific database Citation database
39. Gauge significance of individual articles
& authors
Uses expertise of experts in the field
Gives insight into research patterns in
different disciplines
Can save you time – especially when
doing more rigorous research
Advantages
