Scientific Literature Search

Skills and strategies

Literature: Hundreds of thousands of books and Journals.Research: What has been done before and build on previous work.Classification of Scientific LiteratureThree major types of sources of information1. primary (1o)2. secondary (2o)3. Tertiary (3o)Some journals may present only a single type but some may carry literature in two or three categories.

Primary LiteratureComprises all scientific literature that

presents new, novel scientific data or ideas. Reviews, perspectives and analyses that

advance new concepts and viewpoints about data generated by others

Published in scholarly journals “Peer-reviewed” journals most

respected.

An original article in a research journal can be in the form of a:1) Full paper

Complete report usually accompanied by a short abstract

2) Note A final report on a project of smaller scope,

includes experimental details but not abstract3) Communication

A preliminary report of finding of unusual significance

Very concise In most cases followed by a full journal

Examples of journals that publish 1o journals for Anthropology

General Journal of Human Evolution Current Anthropology American Journal of Physical Anthropology Evolutionary Anthropology

Specific to the project: Journal of Archaeological Science Paleobiology Anthropozoologica Antiquity

Examples of journals that publish 1o journals for Biology

General PLOS Biology Journal of the History of Biology Cell Ecology

Specific to the project Journal of Experimental Botany Journal of Biological Chemistry Molecular Biology and Evolution Plant Molecular Biology

Plant Physiology

Examples of journals that publish 1o journals for Chemistry General

Journal of American Chemical Society (English) Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical

Communication (English) Journal of Organic Chemistry Tetrahedron Letters (English, German, French) Journal of Medicinal chemistry

Specific to the project Journal of Food Chemistry Journal of Agriculture and Food chemistry Journal of Food chemistry and Nutrition Trends in Food Science and Technology American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Molecular Nutrition and Food Research

Secondary Literature -Comprises summaries of results and ideas from primary literature written for an audience of scientists with some understanding of the topics.-Good place to begin searching a topicExamples of secondary literature include:1. Journals that only publish review articles a survey of a single limited topic

Chemical Review Annual review of food science and technology Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food

Safety

2. Review articles and Perspectives in other journals

3. Symposia Scientist meet to present scientific

information focused upon a particular topico Often published together as a book

4. Abstract Journalsexample chemical abstract

5. Books Some written by individual, others compilation

of articles by one or more editors Some could be considered as primary sources if

they disclose new ideas on a very specific topic.

Useful handbooks that compile data in chemistry:1) Beilstein

A multivolume that lists all known organic compounds, t heir physical properties, methods of preparation and other available information. Not up to date2) the handbook of Chemistry and Physics3)the dictionary of Organic Compounds4) the Merck Index5) the Aldrich Catalog of chemical compounds6) for the chemistry Science 10 project

o HarvestPlus Handbook for Carotenoid Analysis http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/CurrentCourse/harvestplus%20handbook.pdf

o a Guide to Carotenoid Analysis in Foods

http://vizedhtmlcontent.next.ecollege.com/CurrentCourse/harvest_plus_-2[1].pdf

Well known and widely used scientific journals that cover a wide variety of topics in science

Nature Science PNAS PLOS One

Tertiary Literature Generally written for a nonscientific audience or for

scientist in other disciplines. Generally sources of information in theses articles

are not cited, or a bibliography of related readings is included.

Information found here are usually unreferenced Examples of 3o literature sources :1. Science magazines such as Scientific American, Current

science, Science Today, National Geographic2. Lay magazines as Discover Magazine, Newspapers,

News Journals such as Newsweek or Times)3. Textbooks4. encyclopedias

Gray” Literature Information that is not easily classified

Example some government publications

***In some cases the scientific literature can be just classified primary and secondary in which all peer-reviewed journal article are primary and the rest of the literature is secondary.

***What is more important than knowing the exact classification is to know what sources are available and understand the reliability of the articles and use the information accordingly.

Types of Sources that are Appropriate for Your research project

Your literature search should include mainly 1o, 2o however some 3o literature sources that are reliable and reputable are acceptable

For developing posters do not include 3o literature .

Some Basic Steps to Searching the Scientific Literature1. Do a quick elementary search by using your textbook or other textbooks, encyclopedia, or a quick online search2. Develop a list of “Key words” to help you further search your topic3. Search the computerized catalog under these key words4. Use various computerized and bound indexes to search key words5. Revise your key words as needed to broaden or narrow the search6. Use the literature cited in these papers to identify other relevant articles and access 2o and 1o sources.

Resources Available on Computer

The internet is a good and fast resource for a bibliographic research to search for references to relevant scientific articles.It can be a powerful tool for gaining information however you must recognize three key limitation :1. comprehensive search are nearly impossible since there is so much information available2. There is no guarantee of the accuracy of the quality of the material obtained unless you are sure of the source

Some of the documents are still evolving3. The material may be moved or removed at any time.

To avoid this, make a back up copy of very pertinent information

As a general rule, do not use information taken directly from web pages as sources for your paper unless they are full-length scientific articles delivered via the internet from a source such as the Electronic Journal Center. More and more papers are being delivered in this

form. Such articles are usually available in print as

well, and you should reference them as if you were looking at the printed product.

Databases of scientific literature can be accessed through the internet and search through a variety of channels, including key words, authors and titles.

Many databases currently provide abstracts and more and more journal publish full articles online that can be accessed with a subscription or without a subscription.

Abstracts are reliable on their own with out the information from the full text.

Brief list of selected online Databases of Scientific publication (“Research Methods” page 171)

Subject Name CommentsAll of Science ISI Web of

KnowledgeVery broad coverage, makes it possible to follow citation

All of science Google Scholar Freely available at scholar.google. comastronomy INSPEC Broad coverage of physical sciencesBiology PubMed PubMed is freely available to the public at pubmed.org

Chemistry Chemical abstract Can search by chemical compound

Earth Science GeoRef  Engineering Ei Compendex Searches technical reports and conference proceedings

other services miss.

Mathematics MathSciNet Online access to Mathematical Review, database, can follow citations

Medicine PubMed PubMed is freely available to the public at pumed.org

Physics INSPEC Broad coverage of physical sciences. Indexing goes back to nineteenth century

          

“Research Methods” page 171

More online data bases Biosis Preview (on-line version of

BioAbstracts) Periodical Abstracts OHIOLINK Indexes on CD-ROM Academic Search Premier Science Full Text Select JSTOR

More about Key words Careful selection of key words is important to an

effective search If the search is too general, many articles will

show and it would be over whelming or if it too specific, no hits will come .

It is important to use a more refined key wording to get reduce number of citation to a manageable level.

Boolean searches allow you to combine words and phrases using the words AND, OR, ... known as Boolean operators) to limit, widen, or define your search.

Web directories default to these Boolean search parameters anyway, but a good Web searcher should know how to use basic Boolean operators.

Obtaining Scientific articles if you are lucky the search engine you are using

might provide a link to full text, You might obtain the article:

Free College might have access or Or ask the Liberian if it can be obtained from UCLA Or check www.lib.utexas.edu under “research tools”

click “find a Journal” and type the name of the journal 2What if the journal or the article is not available

check Google for the journal If it involves biology or medicine the article is freely

available through PubMed Articles written about subjects that are funded by the

government (such as by NIH, NSF) are freely available Check Google Scholar for the article title and author

names The last resort go to one of the university libraries

and get the article

Other Research Tools Annual Index of Individual Journals Scientific Citation Index (SCI) Electronic Journal Center (EJC)

Bound Indexes Chemical Abstracts Biological Abstracts General Science Index There are many other bound indexes

To access the Santa Monica College Library databases from the SMC Library website:

1) Go to http://library.smc.edu 2) Under “Find” click on the link "Articles in Newspapers, Journals,

Magazines - Article and Reference Databases." 3) Click on "All Databases" or “Article Databases.”

4) Read through the list with brief descriptions of the content and scope of the databases.5) Choose a database. You might start with the database "Academic Search Premier/MasterFILE Premier.” This is actually a combination of two databases. It is the largest and most general in nature, and is widest in scope in terms of the range of topics covered.

Note: If you are off campus, you will be prompted to login to the database using your SMC Network Account Username and Password.6) Once you have searched for your topic, for example "carotenoids," you will see a list of periodical articles (from journals, magazines & newspapers).  The citations (descriptive listings) that say "Full-Text" are available to read by clicking on the "Full-Text" link.  The other citations only provide the bibliographic information and an abstract or brief summary of the article. 

7) You can refine your search by specifying which search field to search in, for example by changing the "Select a Field (optional)" to "SU Subject Terms," which are controlled vocabulary terms.  You can also add additional terms, for example: carotenoids AND research. 

8) You can search through the full text of articles by searching in “full text” or “all text,” etc., instead of a bibliographic field. For example: carotenoids AND (research OR methodology) in full text.

9) In addition to specifying the words or phrases that describe your topic, you can limit or narrow your search in various other ways. For example, you can limit your search to those articles that are actually available from the database (instead of those articles for which only a bibliographic description with abstracts is available) by selecting the “Full-Text” limit. Or you can limit your results to scholarly (peer reviewed) journals. These are just two examples.

10) If you want to track down an article that is not available in full text in the result list, open a new window and from the library home page select "Journals, Newspapers, and Magazines by Name."  You can paste the title of the periodical into the search box and see if the SMC Library subscribes to that periodical in one of the other databases, or in print format.

Some of the information in this PPP was obtained from

http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/introlab/infores.pdf