Questions tagged [literature-search]

Questions about finding specific papers, books, etc. pertaining to a topic. This includes the use of online databases such as Google Scholar or PubMed to find relevant articles.

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Dealing with unsupervised research as novice researcher

I am currently working on a research project at a non-academic institution as part of a summer internship. They've brought me in to work on a topic that is somewhat within my area of study. However, ...
marcman's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
287 views

Publishing a literature review

Over the course or the past year, I've become very familiar with a specific topic through a careful and systematic review of the background and state-of-the-art. I think this could make for a nice ...
Teusz's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
214 views

Literature survey in multiple languages

The following question has been induced by a comment to the question What to do if chosen topic has been done in a foreign language. I know four languages (+-1) sufficiently well to be able to read ...
Nox's user avatar
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49 votes
8 answers
7k views

Strategies to remember papers that you read

What strategies do you use to remember papers that you read? I usually take notes, but when after a while I look at the notes, I don't remember most of the details. So I have to go back to the ...
CentAu's user avatar
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21 votes
3 answers
754 views

How to measure achievement in a field where large collaborations are normal?

In some fields of research, huge collaborations are the norm. This is especially true in experimental high-energy physics. Say I'm evaluating someone's resume, and that person is transitioning out of ...
user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
387 views

Efficient method to receive alerts for new publications

I am currently using Google Scholar to receive alerts (emails) for new publications in my field. However, to my understanding (I might be wrong) Google Scholar doesn't allow to: Use regular ...
Remi.b's user avatar
  • 291
5 votes
2 answers
219 views

How to search web for patents only?

How can a search be made at google-scholars, Scopus etc for only patents? I want to search patents on a given topic or a set of keywords, but the results mostly include papers. Where I have to scan ...
tod's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to formally report database literature search results?

Years ago, I seen an interesting article that made reference to database search results. The author run a few queries through PubMed and reported on the number of records. This was a neat introduction ...
Konrad's user avatar
  • 143
2 votes
2 answers
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Is it possible to find out which author got the most citations in a specific scientific discipline?

I'm currently trying to find out which authors get the most citations in specific fields, like Astrophysics Condensed Matter High Energy Physics - Experiment ... (These are all arXiv categories) ...
jak's user avatar
  • 139
8 votes
2 answers
436 views

How to locate most important literature in an unfamiliar area

I'm a pre-doctoral researcher (does it exist?) figuring out my true interests and learning the craft. When I start exploring a new (that is, unfamiliar) area, I try to find the most influential ...
ba_ul's user avatar
  • 363
5 votes
2 answers
4k views

Where can I search for researchers in a specific field by location

Where can I search for some authors of publications or researchers in a specific filed (e.g. Computer science) and in a specific country (USA, China, ...) For example I would like to find all people ...
Ahmad's user avatar
  • 1,407
1 vote
1 answer
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IEEE and ACM gives very different results

Me and my colleague are conducting a literature search that will be used to argue about an experiment. We've just started our SLR and noticed that ACM and IEEE gives very different results. When ...
Simon Cedergren Malmqvist's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
593 views

How do you organize your research?

I am doing a lot of reading and experimenting to dig deeper into my research topic. In our institute we have weekly meetings, were we present our latest research. Often my professor asks me questions ...
Carol.Kar's user avatar
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12 votes
3 answers
4k views

How to find only the papers that cite a particular article in an important way?

I'm having the following problem: There is some interesting paper (in machine learning) which is cited by 180 other papers (according to Google Scholar). From these 180, I want to find the papers that ...
cruvadom's user avatar
  • 221
10 votes
4 answers
4k views

Is there a way to find review articles by the keyword?

When I search for papers using some keywords in academic databases (like Google Scholar), there are lots of papers, but I would like to read literature reviews first because I’m new in that area. (By ...
huammmm1's user avatar
  • 103
13 votes
5 answers
3k views

How to find out if my specific idea is really new, or if someone has already worked on it?

I started working on my PhD few months ago and I am trying to solve a problem in a particular topic. The topic is quite specific and many people have already worked on it before. I am stuck at the ...
krips89's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
850 views

How to 'stay up to date' in your field?

In academia, it's important to stay up to date with the latest 'hot' hypotheses in the your field. By 'hot', I mean the hypothesis that are most important/topical/relevant/popular. Perhaps the best ...
luciano's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
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Asked about bibliographic search skills for application

I’m applying for a postdoctoral role in the UK, and I am asked to have ’bibliographic search skills’. I’m sort of at a loss as to what that means, specifically – does anyone know? I’m assuming it ...
Scot's user avatar
  • 169
4 votes
1 answer
184 views

Does EBSCO's "Peer Review" search filter filter out junk journals?

My school's library e-journal search tool uses EBSCO. In EBSCO, one can select "Peer Review" to only show articles from peer reviewed journals. Does this filter have a system for removing junk ...
Village's user avatar
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4 votes
3 answers
1k views

How to build a list of seminal papers in a field?

This question is similar to this one, but focused on papers rather than on authors. Does anybody know of a systematic way to build a list of the most cited and/or influential papers in a discipline? ...
Pablo Suau's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
341 views

How can I replicate a search strategy described in a publication?

I found a Cochrane Review from 2012. I would like to perform a new search with the same search strategy to see if there are an updates in this topic. The search strategy is given at the bottom of this ...
Jenny's user avatar
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22 votes
5 answers
2k views

Is it right to ignore publications coming from non-top publishers?

When I look into a specific problem over Google Scholar and simple Google Search, I find many related publications from publishers other than IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, Springer etc. Usually the authors ...
Kristof Tak's user avatar
  • 3,036
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

How to find the most relevant publications in field/topic

What is the most reliable way of finding the most relevant publications in scientific field and particularly a specific topic? Does Google Scholar citing results suffice?
Kristof Tak's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
244 views

How to find out the terms used for a topic, so that I can find the appropriate literature on it?

My English is not perfect, moreover I am not familiar with the exact phrases for a topic of research or a technical term in the literature I have some ideas or projects done, if I knew the exact word ...
Ahmad's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
3k views

How to find book titles in other languages?

I received a major task from my professor and I was wondering what approach is academic custom to take in such a case. My supervisor wrote an article on a certain topic (I prepared already some ...
Patric Hartmann's user avatar
19 votes
2 answers
672 views

How to search for list of papers citing both papers A and B?

For given papers A and B, I would like to search for all papers that cite both A and B. I guess one can generalize to papers {A,B,C,...} and find all papers that cite all of them. A quick Google ...
Victor V Albert's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
82 views

How can I find out which digital libraries include a given journal?

When I am looking for a journal online, I have to do search for it in every electronic database one by one. Is there an easy way to find which electronic databases provide that journal? I am doing ...
Luke's user avatar
  • 143
8 votes
2 answers
997 views

How to find the ISI-indexed papers for a specific institution?

I am interested in finding the ISI-indexed papers for a given institition X. This would be any ISI-indexed paper where one or more authors are affiliated with X. Is this doable and are there any ...
seteropere's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
473 views

Mendeley - add notes to research

I am using mendeley to save papers etc. which have come up during my research. However, I am often having some ideas about problems which are interesting or some links which are worth reading later. I ...
Carol.Kar's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
136 views

How to find size of academic literature in a given discipline?

The question is related to the trend of research and focus on different disciplines. Is there some trend assesment which shows the number of articles or conferences on a specific disciplines? If ...
Armand's user avatar
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4 votes
3 answers
453 views

Should I pursue a research area even after finding that papers have already been written on it?

I am an undergraduate and I have no experience in research papers. I have come up with an idea to write a simple research paper on "Emerging fiber optic networks in Africa." To my utter astonishment, ...
user18044's user avatar
8 votes
5 answers
803 views

Is there a tool for visualizing the geographic locations of research?

Many e-journals search tools contain much metadata in their database. For example, they have the "location" entry required for some citation formats, which at least shows the location of the journal, ...
Village's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
1k views

How should I ask for library services for literature review?

Early on the research planning process, I would like to make use of the services offered by public libraries. Including online library services, what is the best way they could help a student ...
LVLLFD's user avatar
  • 113
6 votes
1 answer
381 views

Do all US schools provide the same access to e-journal resources?

I recently took courses from several different schools, with different semesters in different parts of the US. When visiting the schools' library Web sites, I noticed that each offered a similar "...
Village's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
108 views

What query language is most common for e-journal searches?

I need to teach a quick lesson on e-journal searching, e.g. to search for one item, excluding certain terms, or another item. What is the most common query language that students will most likely ...
Village's user avatar
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13 votes
2 answers
948 views

How do you keep track of papers during a brainstorming literature review?

I am often in charge of researching new sub-topics in my discipline for short papers. I find my default technique is: Search Google Scholar for best-guess keywords Open relevant-looking resulting ...
Adrienne's user avatar
  • 4,003
10 votes
1 answer
804 views

How do I pick good keywords for literature alerts?

F'x has made a very informative post here about staying up to date with current research. My question concerns the "publication alert" part of it. To be clear: I am asking about setting up an online ...
Superbest's user avatar
  • 8,165
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Finding research papers for undergraduate research [duplicate]

I am seeking some help to find research papers (preferably in the area of Markov chains) for my undergraduate research for reference. Any guidance on how to find research papers in general for ...
Heisenberg's user avatar
40 votes
6 answers
9k views

How can I express "I can't find any papers written about this"?

I'm an undergraduate writing a paper for a philosophy course in logic. My paper is exploring a relationship between Leibniz' logic and graph theory. In writing the paper, I've found some material in ...
Patrick Collins's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
102 views

Does interdisciplinary research usually require reading/reviewing more literature?

This may be quite a difficult question to answer in general, but I suspect that the answer is "yes" as less-well-defined discipline boundaries mean having to read more to cover all bases. Can anyone ...
Sideshow Bob's user avatar
21 votes
2 answers
475 views

Non-English literature: should we check for prior work?

How far should we go when considering the possibility that a (non spectacular, bur relevant) result has already appeared in any other language different from English? Is it safe to ignore non-English ...
Quora Feans's user avatar
  • 4,043
0 votes
1 answer
203 views

How to find the most related publications for a batch?

On Google Scholar, I can explore the related articles or books individually - clicking on the "related articles" gives you the related articles for that specific publication. How will I find the ...
nCoM1kWuDFIjxZNd2zoE's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
3k views

Why do papers sometimes appear unlinked in Google Scholar?

I would like to download this paper: O. Faure. Numerical pathwise approximation of stochastic differential equations. Applied stochastic models and data analysis, 1992. but when I use Google ...
Educ's user avatar
  • 239
5 votes
3 answers
288 views

How to explore/identify similar works in one's own field?

I bet most of the users here had one of the following bad experiences: your idea and someone's idea happen to be very similar, manuscript topics got scooped, etc. Among these bad experiences, the ...
Atena Nguyen's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
145 views

Is a research article the most comprehensive information available about a research project?

I sometimes stumble upon an article about an experiment, e.g a medical experiment done in some medical journal, or an article refering to a physics experiment done, and would like to know more exact ...
fiftyeight's user avatar
37 votes
2 answers
61k views

Literature Review versus Literature Survey. What is the difference?

I have read several articles about literature reviews. At the same time I found some guides about literature surveys. I am confused... how is a literature survey different from a literature review? ...
Npn's user avatar
  • 515
14 votes
8 answers
5k views

What advantages do libraries offer over the internet for doing a literature survey in Mathematics or CS

Currently my literature surveys do not involve trips to the library and I am wondering if I am missing out on something important. What sort of material/knowledge can the library provide that I would ...
Pushpendre's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Selecting the relevant papers for a survey paper I have to write?

I have to write a paper as an assignment for one of the courses that I take in University. The main outcome of this lecture is having a good final paper in the end. As we are Masters students, the ...
Kristof Tak's user avatar
  • 3,036
3 votes
3 answers
420 views

Following literature - What is a good configurable publication notifier?

I would like to keep up to date with public literature in my research field. All relevant publications are of too big a volume to follow and so the problem invites some automatic mechanism of ...
Ohad Dan's user avatar
  • 312
1 vote
2 answers
274 views

How to read an article? [duplicate]

I have searched the literature and I'm now have all the papers I need. I'm reading the papers at the moment in order to write a lit review. I would like to know some strategies to read them, should ...
Saqqaf's user avatar
  • 1,127