Searching the Scientific Literature

Searching the Scientific Literature
Douglas A. Loy

Reasons for searching the literature
Find raw data to test dogma for yourselfFind procedures for experiments Ensure that your idea or invention is original Give credit to those who did the work first For the joy of doing the research

For patents, proposals and papers, you must determine if your work is original
Multiple, exhaustive searches of literatureUse reviews, dissertations, & encyclopediasAlternative keywordsChemical structuresChemical Abstract System (CAS #)Search back as far as literature goes

Citing Original work prior art
Knowingly ignoring prior art is fraudOnly citing your own work or part of literature is fraudEven the most careful search of the literature may miss prior art.Excusable if you have evidence of having made a reasonable effort to find prior art.

Searching the literature before 1990
50% of your time was spent in the library searching through the chemical abstracts and then checking papers
Chemical Abstracts

Journals

Encyclopedias
Hard or bound tomes in libraries

Searching the literature today
Worst
Best
Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia
Scifinder, Web of Science, Reayxs
Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic
Encyclopedias, Dissertations, Reviews

Strategy for complete searches
Structure search (SciFinder or Reaxys)CAS number(s)- unique numbers for each chemicalFocus in on topic with key wordsIdentify key papersSee who the author cited in paperSee who is citing the papers Search authors for additional papers Obtain dissertations from authors groups to expand citation base

Keywords
Each paper has 4-10 keywords assigned to it by the journal editor to aide searchersMany are volunteered by the author of the paperHowever, unless you already have a paper or experience in an area you may have trouble finding keywords that give you a complete search.It is possible to miss dozens of papers or patents.

Coming up with key words for searching.
From paper titlessearch your keywords on WWW and look for alternativesFind a review in the general area and scan through it for keywordsGo find your topic or related topic in a technical encyclopedia in the libraryAsk an expert for help

Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry 6th ed.Wiley-VCH, 2001
Technical Encyclopedias
Often have industry based authors

Facts unavailable in journals

Beilstein

Beilstein's 'Handbuch der organischen Chemie

3 million organic compounds until 1979

listing their name, molecular formula, structural formula, all methods of preparation, important physical, chemical and biological properties, occurrence in nature, and information about derivatives.

Online for fee

Free Online Synthesis Databases/search systems

Chemogenesis Focus: Chemogenesis is a web book, dealing with chemical reactions and chemical reactivity. Organic Syntheses (ORGSYN) Focus: high-yield synthetic methods and preparations of specific compounds Coverage: 2400 articles and over 6000 reactionsSyntheticPages Focus: SyntheticPages is a freely available interactive database of synthetic chemistry. Coverage: 292 reactions

Webreactions Focus: Reaction search system Coverage: about 400,000 individual reactionsAccess: Online

Journals with review articles only

Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry, section Chemical ReviewsChemical Society reviewsSpecialist Periodical ReportsUspekhi Khimii (Russian Chemical Reviews)Progress in Polymer Science

-Set up & maintained by American Chemical Society-Subject: identification data of all types of chemical substances - Sources: > 9,000 journals, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, dissertations, reviews, web preprints (1957- ) -Records: > 50 million substances-Searchable by Scifinder
CAS Registry
Has, for all practical purposes, replaced Beilstein

Chemical Abstracts (ACS)

-Subject: bibliographic data of all areas of chemistry and chemical engineering-Sources: > 9,000 journals, 50 active patent-issuing authorities, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, dissertations, reviews, web preprints (1907- )- Records: > 24 million Search: Bibliographic terms, indexing terms, CAS Registry Numbers and CA abstractsGuides: STN database summary sheet, STN-Access: Scifinder/Scifinder Scholar , STN, STN Easy

Analyze by author, institution, document type, journal name, year

Subsearch by author

Full Text can be obtained through link

By Number of Citations

How do you know which one is the right one??

Find a resume or curriculum vita online to identify where your author worked.

Another search engine is Web of Science or ISI.

How to evaluate what journals to publish or read: Citation impact

Summary
You must cite the literature for patents, papers and proposalsFailure to do so can lead to loss of job and degreeSearch engines provide highly productive toolsExhaustive searches with varied keywordsStructure and CAS searches best