Literature searching for your PhD

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Literature searching for your PhD

• Natalie Langford
• www.leeds.ac.uk/library

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• what we can learn depends on what we
• know. (Novak, 2004)

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Why search the literature?

• Get an overview of an area
• Increase your knowledge of a subject
• Clarify your ideas
• Put your research into the context of what is
  already known
• Avoid trying to solve a problem which has already
  been examined
• Keep up to date
• At research level, need to capture maximum number
  of relevant studies
• Quick and dirty searches are not enough

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How do events, discoveries and ideas become
knowledge?
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Planning your literature search
1. What exactly are you looking for?
4. Reflect improve on your search
2. Where are you going to look?
3. How are you going to search?
Tip use SearchPal to list each area
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Why plan the literature search?

• Try to avoid missing vital material
• You may want to include your search strategy in
  your thesis methodology section
• Tick off each stage of your search
• Re-run searches regularly
• Tip Discuss your findings with your
• supervisor
• Have you missed any key papers?

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What exactly are you looking for?

• In pairs, discuss one area of your literature
  review what kind of information do you need to
  find?
• Books, review articles, data, journal articles,
  theses etc?
• What key questions do you need to address?
• What information do you need to address them?
• Write your ideas down in SearchPal

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Where are you going to look for information? Make
a shopping list

• Electronic resources, print sources etc?
• Write down in SearchPal the names of the
  databases, websites and print resources that you
  will need to search

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Tools for locating information 1
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Tools for locating information 2
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Tools for locating information 3
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Tools for locating information 4
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Cant I just use Google Scholar?

• Good points
• Easy to use
• Finds a variety of information sources online
• Searches WorldCat for Library stock all over the
  world
• Bad points
• Often finds articles that need a subscription to
  read
• Often finds several references to the same
  article
• Does not include articles from some major journal
  publishers
• Lacks search flexibility and specificity
• Little information available about how it works

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How are you going to search for information?
keywords

• Which keywords are you going to use?
• Create a mind map of keywords that you can use to
  search with

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How are you going to search for information?
keywords

• Joining keywords together
• Use your mind map to pull together words into
  search statements in SearchPal

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Combine keywords and phrases together

• Link your keywords and phrases together using
• the boolean operators
• AND
• OR
• NOT

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Combining your keywords using AND

• This is used to narrow a search
• It decreases the number of references retrieved,
  and makes your search specific
• e.g
• advertising AND television

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Combining your keywords using OR

• It is used to combine related terms /synonyms
• It increases the number of references retrieved
  and makes your search more comprehensive
• e.g
• - Television or tv
• - Morrisons OR sainsburys OR tesco OR waitrose

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Combining your keywords using NOT

• It is used to exclude information
• It should be used with caution because you may
  inadvertently exclude relevant articles
• e.g
• - (teenager or child or kid or youth)
  NOT (baby or toddler)

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Advertising via TV to children
Key concepts to find information on this
topic advertising, children, TV
Alternative key words grouped into concepts
(advertising, advert, advertisement, advertise)
(children, child, youth) (television, TV)
Use AND and OR to link your key words in your
search strategy
Advert and (TV or television) and (child or
youth)
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Find different word endings in one search

• Use truncation symbols to search for words with
  different endings
• advert
• Advert, adverts, advertise, advertising,
  advertisement
• Symbols vary between databases check the help
  screens
• ?

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Wildcards

• Use ? to represent 1 or no characters
• behavio?r will find behaviour or behavior
• Use to represent 1 character
• womn will find woman or women
• Organiation will find organisation or
  organization

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Adjacency searching

• Use adj to search for words occurring near each
  other, in any order
• - oral adj cancer
• - oral adj4 cancer
• evaluation of cancer surgery in the oral region
• oral and maxillofacial cancer
• Oral cavity squamous cell cancer
• Breast cancer and specific types of oral
  contraceptives
• Oral, dental and supportive care in the cancer
  patient

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Limits

• A useful way of restricting the amount or kind of
  information you find
• Dates
• Language
• Publication type (e.g. book review or broadcast)
• Geography

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Subject heading searches

• Word or phrase that describes the content of an
  article
• Arranged in subject hierarchies
• Only the most specific heading is used
• Assigned from a fixed list of words (controlled
  vocabulary)

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Screenshot of subject heading structure
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Advantages of subject headings

• Avoids the need to think of synonyms, variant
  spellings, plurals
• Headings can be exploded to include narrower
  terms
• Words do not have to appear in the title or
  abstract

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Disadvantages of subject headings

• Problems of inconsistency / subjectivity
• Time lag before new concepts receive a subject
  heading (e.g. a new technology) therefore very
  general subject headings may be used

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Searching

• Carry out some searches using your
• List of what you are looking for
• List of where you need to search
• List of search statements and other keywords
• Store references to relevant information as you
  search

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Tips for carrying out your literature search

• Save useful references electronically
• Use database help screens
• Having problems? Make a note of them e.g. finding
  too much/too little/irrelevant information
• Found a great article?
• Follow up every reference in the bibliography

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What is grey literature, and how do I find it?

• Information produced by organisations which is
  not published formally
• Statistics
• Reports e.g. financial
• Market research
• Newsletters
• Guidelines
• Speeches
• Tip Find grey literature using databases or
  try searching the website of the
  organisation/person of origin

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After your literature search

• Did you discover more useful keywords in your
  search?
• Add them to your mindmap and SearchPal and re-run
  some searches to see the effect this has
• Look at the references you have collected
• Are there any recurring authors you could follow
  up?
• Add them to SearchPal

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Getting books and articles not in stock

• Document supply service
• Online requesting available
• Request in person at any Library enquiry desk
• 2.00

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Joining other University libraries

• Join SCONUL Access
• Download an application form
• http//www.access.sconul.ac.uk/
• Ask to register at our Library enquiry desk
• Check opening times and catalogues of the
  libraries you visit
• Take your SCONUL Research Extra card and your
  Leeds ID card and start borrowing!

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Literature searching summary

• Planning a search
• What do you need to find?
• Where to search
• How to search
• Search tips
• Reflecting on your results