biological & biomedical sciences literature review skills

Research Skills for a Literature Review

Richard Holmes, Durham University Library

Aims

• To bring everybody up to speed• Dispel common misapprehensions• Explain the tools available• Provide time for hands-on and for Q&A

Format

• Where to search Introduction to the tools• Hands on• Comfort break• How to search: strategies and techniques• Hands on• Q&A

Use the Right Tool

• Google isn’t great for academic research• Alternatives are more efficient…• Save you time• Improve your results

What’s wrong with using Google then?

Problems with Google

• Too many search results• Not targeted at academics• Indiscriminate harvesting of information• Search results are manipulated (personalised)

and sorted by popularity; not quality• Google has no awareness of Durham holdings or

subscriptions

But, good for finding ‘grey’ literature

Go Scholar?

• Filters out web sites and other ‘lay’ material

• Searches mainly academic domains

• Some awareness of Durham collections

• Broader search than some alternative

• Indexing is still automated• Hazy definition of

‘scholarly’• Depth of coverage (misses

key resources)• Limited filter/refine options• Less structured/consistent

records than alternatives

Tip: Set up library links

Library Catalogue, then?

Benefits:• Degree of quality assurance• Check local availability of

specific content• Find monographs on your

subject• Access to everything it finds

No good for finding:• Chapters (in textbooks)• Articles• Conference papers• Newspaper reports• Theses• Technical notes• Images

An extremely superficial search tool

Discover?

• Deeper searching• Identifies a range of content types (including articles,

chapters, images, primary material)• Options to limit or filter results• Searches just owned/subscribed content but can also

search more broadly

But…• No citation data to assess popularity or impact• Fewer advanced search options offered by niche databases

Commercial Databases

Two distinct types:

Full Text

VS

Bibliographic

Commercial Databases

1 - Full text collections– JSTOR– ScienceDirect

• Search every word in every paper (deep searching)• View the full PDFs immediately (where entitled)

But…

• Narrow breadth (limited or individual publishers)• Multiple search interfaces to learn

Commercial Databases

2 - Indexes of bibliographic information– Web of Science– Medline/PubMed– SciFinder Scholar

Search multiple publishers at onceMainly peer reviewed materials

But…

No knowledge of your access entitlementsUse ConneXions to check Local availability

Demo

Catalogue

Discover

ScienceDirect

Web of Science

No one resource covers everything! Use a range of options.

Have a go!

Comfort Break

What to search

Entering correct syntax

The Research Cycle1.

Decide where to

search

2.Choose

your search terms

3.Perform

the search

4.Review results

Choosing Search TermsIdentify the key words/concepts from your topic

“Treatment and prevention of Ebola Virus in Women and Children”

Choosing Search TermsIdentify the key words/concepts from your topic:

“Treatment and prevention of Ebola Virus in Women and Children”

Choosing Search TermsIdentify keywords from your topic:

“Treatment and prevention of Ebola Virus in Women and Children”

Identify Synonyms:• Treatment| intervention| management | cure• Prevention |prophylaxis• Women| females• Children| Infants | minors | neonates

Tip: Use a thesaurus such as ‘VisuWords’ to identify synonyms and related concepts

Tips to broaden or narrow your search

“Treatment and prevention of Ebola Virus in Women and Children”

• Identify Synonyms: prevention OR prophylaxis | treatment OR intervention | children OR Infants OR Minors

• Truncation: prevent* = prevent, prevents, prevention, prevented, preventing

• Wildcards: wom?n to locate woman or women• Phrases: “prevention of Ebola”• Joining Words: AND, OR, NOT

Have a go!

Evaluate your resources

Consider:• Who wrote it• What are their credentials?• Who did they write it for?• Why did they write it?• When did they write it?

Further guidance at• http://prezi.com/q5jglgamre6c/evaluating-information/ • https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/using/finding/evalinfo/

Keep a note of all references used

Catalogue and databases all offer the option to save/export recordsDo it! It will save time when writing up and referencing

Bookable Endnote sessions:• 18th November• 8th December

Zotero equivalent on:• 25th November

Apply via the University’s course booking system https://www.dur.ac.uk/training.course/