Cambridge University Library

How to do a literature searchEmma CoonanResearch Skills Librarian, Cambridge University Library

What is it?

• Searching for (chiefly) published work about a topic of your choice

• Aiming to get a sound grasp of your topic and its context

• Joining the academic dialogue

What is it?

“A detailed and organised, step by step search for all the material available on a topic.”

www.rgu.ac.uk/library/howto/page.cfm?pge=25989

Unknown unknowns

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

1. Where to look

Your research sources: 1

Books: Newton (includes eBooks)

Journals*: Newtonejournals@cambridge

* but you have to know (and search by) the journal title, not the journal article title

Your research sources: 2

• Journal articles

• Book chapters

• Conference papers

• Festschriften contributions

• Reports

• Reviews

• Patents

?

Where can I find …

Not in the library catalogue!

What’s a citation database?

• Began as online indexes of journal articles

• Expanded to contain other document types

• Evolved in some cases into storage archives

• May offer full-text links

• Not comprehensive

Text archive vs. citation database

JSTOR

• contains about 1,750 journals (March 2010)• full-text articles: c. 2m

Scopus

• indexes over 16,500 journals• article citations: c. 38m

Still not comprehensive!

Explore eresources@cambridge …

Find selected subject resources

Find selected subject resources

2. How to look

Translating your topic into keywords

• Napoleon or Nelson (either name)

• Napoleon and Nelson (both names)

• Napoleon not brandy (excluded word)

• “Napoleon Bonaparte” (as a phrase)

Boolean searching

What’s in a name?

Trafalgar =

(naval or sea or maritime or marine …)

and

(battle or conflict or combat or action …)

? and * (wildcard and truncation)

? replaces a single character

• ‘Wom?n’ finds ‘woman’ or ‘women’ • ‘Globali?ation’ finds British or American spelling

* replaces any number of characters (including zero)

• ‘Pig*’ finds ‘pig’, ‘pigs’, ‘pigmy’, ‘pigment’ ...• ‘Transfer*’ finds ‘transfer’, ‘transfers’, ‘transferable’,

‘transferability’ …

Search exercise 1

1. Go to www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources and find the SCOPUS database

2. Search for material published from 2005 onwards on sustainable transport, with particular reference to cycling

Search exercise 1

Try linking your keywords together in different ways and using truncation:

• “sustainable transport” and cycl*

• sustainable and transport and cycl*

• sustainable and transport and *cycl*

Notice the difference in how many results you get by using various strategies

Search exercise 2

1. Return to www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources and find Web of Knowledge

2. Search for material on cyberbullying among adolescents

Search exercise 2

Think about synonyms and variations of your keywords:

• “cyberbullying” could also be spelt cyber-bullying, or might be referred to as online bullying

• Synonyms for “adolescents” could include teenagers, young people, youth …

Truncation tip: searching for you?? will find hits on both young and youth

3. When to look

When to look

• As part of your initial approach to the topic or research question

• Periodically throughout your research

RSS and search alerts are very useful here

• As part of your final writing-up process

Where do I start?

www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources

UL homepage – digital library

Research Skills Programme

At www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Courses/ you can …

• Find our timetable of subject-based sessions

• Book for hands-on information skills classes

• Request one-to-one training

• Download these slides and other handouts

… or e-mail research-skills@lib.cam.ac.uk

Thanks for coming!

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