Effective Literature Searching

Why do a literature search? If you are a research student, your literature review forms the central core upon which you hang the argument of your thesis. It is intended to present and synthesise the background to your research, to demonstrate that you have read appropriately within your subject area, and to show where your work fits in to existing knowledge. If you are a masters student, it will form the first chapter of your thesis, and without it, what you submit will not fulfil the requirements for an academic dissertation. You will also need to be able to identify papers for assignments and project work. What is available? All of the Librarys resources are available from a service called SearchHub. Find it by visiting the Library homepage at http://www.cranfieldlibrary.cranfield.ac.uk and selecting SearchHub from the Library quick links heading on the left of the page. SearchHub is a service which brings together access to all the electronic resources that the Library subscribes to databases, e-journals and e-books, as well as freely available, quality resources such as library catalogues, Internet gateways and search engines. The Library Catalogue This is a good place to start searching for information, and will allow you to search for books and journals held in the Library. It will also tell you whether or not they are on loan, and allow you to place a hold to recall items which are being used by someone else. The Library Catalogue also provides links to electronic books and journals, and allows you to ask for anything not held in the Library by placing an interlibrary loan request. The advantage is that everything that you see is in stock, but the disadvantage is that it can be very limiting. You are only searching for words in the title of a book, journal or report, and it does not include contents pages, individual journal articles or abstracts. You will find that although books are a good source of background information, you will also need much more specific information, and this is usually found in journal articles, conference papers and technical reports. Databases The Library subscribes to over a hundred commercially-produced databases, and there are several methods within SearchHub that you can use to identify those which are useful to your search. Some databases provide financial information about companies, some provide market research reports, and some provide journal articles and conference papers. It is this last type which will be discussed in this leaflet. It is

important to remember that the Library does not create these databases, it only subscribes to them. This means that the Library does not stock all of the articles indexed on them, and you may have to request an article as an interlibrary loan. Different types of database There are three broad categories of journal database, and the type that you use will determine whether you can view the full text of articles you find, the abstracts only, or a mixture of full text and abstracts. Many electronic databases focus on one particular subject, and draw the articles they index from a wide range of journals within that subject. These databases are generally the best place to start your search because of their wide subject coverage. They also tend to have good keyword indexing, to help make your search more effective. However, they will only give you an abstract of the article. Many databases include an SFX link next to each article. Clicking on this will automatically link you to the Library Catalogue and tell you whether we have the article you have found. If the SFX link is not available you will have to do a separate search on the Library Catalogue to locate the full article. The opposite of this subject approach is electronic journals. These provide the full text of each article, but have to be searched by accessing the journal title that you want, then the volume and part, and then selecting the article you want from the contents page. They are very good for getting the full text of an article that you have already identified, but if you use them for subject searching, remember that you are only searching journals produced by a particular publisher, and so you may miss relevant information. You will find all of the electronic journal databases by choosing e-journal collection under the resource type heading within SearchHub, or by clicking on the electronic journals link, just

under the link to the Library Catalogue, on your subject page. SearchHub also has an e-journals area which provides a searchable and browseable list of all of our electronic journal titles, together with an SFX link to the full text. All electronic journals are also linked to from the Library Catalogue. Some sources are a mixture of the two, and allow you to search across a wide range of journals within a subject area, whilst also providing the full text of at least some articles. The Internet Cranfield University Internet Site Explorer (CRUISE) is the Librarys gateway to the Internet, and provides evaluated Internet resources by subject, plus general reference resources. It also provides links to the major search tools for wider Internet searching. The Internet is an excellent source of information and personal contacts, but be aware that you cannot apply the same assumptions of quality to an Internet resource as you would to an academic journal article. This does not mean that you should not use information found on the Internet; just that you should be more evaluative. Bear in mind that while you may sometimes find journal articles on the Internet (usually on personal sites), the Librarys subscription databases are the most appropriate source if you are searching specifically for articles, while Internet websites will be more useful for company and organisation information. Find CRUISE under the Library quick links section of the web site.

How do I get started? Select the appropriate databases Use the resource categories area within SearchHub to identify the databases relevant to your subject area. All the databases listed will be relevant to a greater or lesser degree. Click on the icon for details of the precise coverage of each source, and ask for help if you are unsure. Almost all databases are available remotely and most require a password. Ask in the Library for more details. Familiarise yourself with the screen layout As our databases are provided via the Internet, it is likely that the interface may change without warning at some point. As long as you are familiar with the principles of searching, and feel confident enough to read the screen, this should not be a problem. Look to see whether the database offers different levels of searching Most databases offer a basic and advanced search, although they may use different names. Advanced is generally better, as it offers the option of combining a number of different terms, and of specifying the part of the record to be searched, i.e. author, title, subject field. Find out whether the database offers controlled keyword searching Controlled keywords, or thesaurus or index terms, as they are sometimes called, can be very helpful in making your search more effective, although this is not always the case. In addition to the title of an article, which may be brief or unhelpful, and the abstract, which may be too general, or which may miss out important aspects of the article, extra keywords are added to a separate field within each record. These keywords are controlled, which means that they are used consistently throughout the database, and can be browsed and then searched for independently of the title or abstract. In some databases, such as

Compendex and Aerospace Database, keywords can enhance your search by ensuring that your results are highly relevant, while in other sources, such as ProQuest ABI or PsycINFO, the keywords can sometimes be insufficient to fully index the article effectively, and you may find it better to search the whole record. How do I put a search together? It is often a good idea to map out your search terms and the relationship between them on paper, before putting them into a database. Thinking of the search terms is usually the most difficult part, and it is important that you give this careful thought. Work out the main concepts It is a good idea to break your search down into different concepts, then think of different ways of expressing each of these. It is generally not helpful to rely too literally on your thesis title for the terms that you use in your search, as this can be very limiting. Instead, try to think of what it is that you actually want to end up with, and what the ideas in your thesis title really mean. For example, a thesis entitled Energy efficiency in public buildings has two main ideas, energy efficiency and public buildings, but to maximise your search results, you would need to think of all the ways in which those concepts could be expressed. Remember to think of synonyms and alternative ways of saying the same thing. Articles on energy efficiency could also use terms

like double glazing, fuel use, heating or plant systems, and public buildings could include hospitals, airports, libraries or schools. If your thesis title includes four or five main ideas, bear in mind that you will not find references which match all the ideas in your search. Instead, you will need to be prepared to extract information on one aspect from some of your articles, and on another from different sources. Select your search terms All databases will allow you to enter search terms anywhere in the whole article record (known as free text searching), but some will also allow you to browse subject keywords and to search on just these. This can sometimes be a better way to search, but every search is different, and you will need to experiment with different ways of entering your search terms. For example: In a search on strategic management on ProQuest ABI, it would be more effective to browse the subject list and select the controlled term strategic management, rather than simply searching for the word strategy anywhere in the text, as this would retrieve every occurrence of the word, regardless of whether it is in the context of strategic management. However, a search on the same database for hub-and-spoke networks would not work using the controlled terms, as huband-spoke is not a recognised indexing keyword. This does not mean that you cannot use it; it just means that you have to search anywhere in the article. Generally, free-text searches can work well if your terms are very specific and cannot easily be mentioned out of context. Avoid using words such as impact, importance, application, role, problems, etc as search terms. They may form an important aspect of your thesis, but they

will not be recognised as central concepts within the database. Furthermore, evaluative aspects such as these are the elements that your analysis will contribute to the thesis, and what you consider to be important or problematic may be different from opinions expressed by others. Wildcards If you are selecting keywords from the thesaurus or list of subject terms, plurals will automatically be included in your search. However, if you are searching free-text anywhere in the article for your term, you will need to use a wildcard symbol to pick up plurals and variant endings. The truncation symbol is usually an asterisk, but may vary from one database to another. For example: Robot* will find robot, robots, robotic and robotics. NB Be careful not to truncate words so short that they then pick up words you did not intend. If you truncate car*, to retrieve both car and cars, you will also retrieve carbon, carbohydrate and carbolic. Put your search terms together Unless you are searching for a single term, you will need to combine your search terms using AND, OR and NOT. Combining terms with AND means that both terms must appear in the search results. You would use AND for two totally separate concepts, eg women AND management. AND will

narrow down your search and produce a smaller set of results. Combining terms with OR means that either or both of the terms must appear in the search results. You would use OR for terms which may be different ways of expressing the same concepts, eg logistics OR distribution. OR will broaden your search and produce a larger set of results. It is worth noting that it is not always obvious when OR should be used, especially when the terms are usually a phrase, eg logistics and distribution. Combining terms with NOT means that the first term, but not the second, must appear in the selected articles, eg languages NOT computer. Some databases use AND NOT, but the result is the same. Use NOT with caution, as it may eliminate potentially useful references. Generally speaking, it is only advisable to use NOT when your second term is retrieving articles which are totally out of context, eg warehousing NOT data. Proximity It is also possible to specify how close together your search terms appear, by using w (for within) and a number, for the number of words between the terms. For example: Customer* w/3 service* will retrieve customer service, services to customers, and services to our customers. It is usually a good idea to progress from general to specific concepts, as you may miss relevant information by making your search too precise initially. For example: A search for ways in which cars can be made more safe in the event of accidents involving pedestrians has four main concepts: cars, pedestrians, accidents, and safety. The first task is to think of relevant synonyms for each concept:

(car OR cars OR automobile*) (people OR pedestrian*) (impact* OR accident* OR collision* OR crash) (safety) The next task is to combine your sets using AND and OR, but the success of a search is often more to do with the elements that you leave out than the ones you include. If you limit your search initially to (car OR cars OR automobile*) AND (people or pedestrian*), it is likely that most of the articles you find will be relevant anyway, simply because articles on cars and pedestrians could be about very little else. Should your first combination of search sets be too broad, it would then be reasonable to add in the (impact* OR accident* OR collision*) set. NB Different databases combine terms in different ways, and you will need to become familiar with how it is done in the databases that are relevant to you. Some allow you to enter terms in different search boxes, while others search one set at a time, allowing you to combine sets once each set has been generated. Searching several databases at once SearchHub makes it possible for you to search several databases at once (this is called cross searching), although this facility is not currently available for all databases. However, if you choose to cross search, you will need to keep your search simple as it is not possible to use any of the more advanced search

techniques described above. Cross searching is useful to help you identify which databases provide most results, or if you need to find information in a hurry, but is not suitable for doing a full literature search. Refine your search if necessary There is no such thing as a right or wrong search, but you will know from the number and relevance of the references you retrieve whether or not your search has been effective. A search retrieving a thousand records is too broad, and you will need to add extra terms to narrow it down, but if your search only retrieves three articles, you will need to think of ways of making it broader. Citation searching Another approach is to search for articles which cite, or refer to, an article which you already know. This can be a useful way of working forwards from a seminal article, or of tracking the progress of an aspect of research. The Citation Indexes (Web of Knowledge) are the only databases which allow you to do this, and on the database pages are listed as Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Making sense of your references You can click on the SFX link if it is available from within a database and it will check the Library Catalogue for you. However, in general, whether your reference comes from a database, or from another printed source, you need to be able to work out what type of document it is, because this will determine how you search for it on the Library Catalogue. A book will usually give the publisher and place of publication, and the title may be in italics. You would search for a book by author and title on the Library Catalogue. A reference for a book looks like this:

Roland, Harold E. and Moriarty, Brian (1990). System safety engineering and management, 2nd ed. Wiley, New York. A journal will not list the publisher, but will give volume, part and page number details, and the title of the journal, but not the article, may be in italics. You would search the Library Catalogue for a journal by entering the journal title (not the article title or author) and clicking on the journal title option. A reference for a journal article looks like this: Preston, Lynelle (2001). Sustainability at Hewlett-Packard. California management review, 43(3), p. 26 37. A conference will usually include words like seminar, meeting, symposium or proceedings, and you would search the Library Catalogue by entering the conference title as a title search. A reference for a conference paper looks like this: Cao, X. (1998). Delamination modeling and analysis of adaptive composites. In: 39th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC structures, structural dynamics, and materials conference and exhibit, Long Beach, California, April 20 23, 1998, part 4, pp. 2911 2916. AIAA, Reston, VA. Evaluation You will need to evaluate your references at every stage of the search to ensure that the information you use is relevant and appropriate. There is no point in requesting an article

which is written in a language that you do not speak, nor is it helpful to use articles which are too old to be relevant. It is also worth bearing in mind the type of document in which the item appears. Technical reports and working papers usually represent the first public disclosure of the research, so are very timely when first published. Similarly, conference papers have the advantage of being timely, but there may be a disadvantage in that they have not had time to become fully accepted by the peer review process. Journal articles are usually peer reviewed, so their quality is acknowledged, but the process can take some time. Books generally represent the acceptance of an idea or method into the mainstream thought of that discipline, but the time it takes to publish a book means that that information will be much older. Obtaining the items There is no guarantee that the items you want will be in stock, although many databases do provide the full text of journal articles in pdf format. Any items not held in the Library, either in hard copy or electronically, can be obtained by placing an interlibrary loan request on the Library Catalogue. You do not have to identify a library which holds the item, but please note that if you are requesting a journal article or conference paper, you will need to fill in and sign a copyright declaration form to say that you do not require the document for commercial use for each article in order to comply with legal requirements. If it is for commercial use, we can obtain it using a copyright cleared service, but you will need to provide a cost code.

Obtaining items
Perform search

Evaluate results refine and repeat as necessary

Follow the SFX link * if present. If SFX link not present, check the Library Catalogue is document available electronically?

No

Is it available on the shelf in the Library? Yes

Visit electronic service and save or print

Yes

No

Borrow or copy (contact Students OffSite S.O.S) if you are a part-time student)

Request an interlibrary loan

* the SFX link is very reliable when searching for a journal article. It is not always so if you are checking for other types of document such as conference papers, reports and books, so it is always worth visiting the Library Catalogue and checking for it that way.