Electricity & Electronics

Department

Chapter 3: Literature search

Duration: 2 Hour

Rev.0.1
 Module Objectives

• Discuss on objective of literature

PPT 2.2
 Topics
• What is literature?
• Objectives of a literature search (review).
• Types of Literature.
• Where to find literature? Library vs. Internet.
• Initial search: Where to start from?
• How to do an efficient and effective literature search?
• Developing search and reading strategies.
• How to search for all the books published in your field?
• How to search for all research articles on your research topic?
What are citation indices or databases?

PPT 2.3
 Topics (cont.)
• What is Cited References Search and how to do it?
• ISI Master Journal List (MJL) Search.
• Journal selection criteria for reading and for publication.

PPT 2.4
 Icebreaker Questions

Reflection in Pairs for 10 Minutes on the

PPT 2.5
 What is literature?

PPT 2.6
 What is literature?
• According to Encyclopedia Britannica it is "a body of written
works".
• Concise Oxford English Dictionary adds "... books and
writings on a particular subject" to this definition.
• The written works include:
• Books, scholarly journals, research papers, theses, abstracts, indexes,
bibliographies, encyclopedias, handbooks, maps, conference
proceedings, specific sources like laws or standards, and official
statistics
• Following literature can also be used with "extreme
precaution" as part of scientific search:
• Internet, Newspapers, Scientific magazine journals, and Unpublished
work through mutual communication

PPT 2.7
 Objectives of a literature
search (review).

PPT 2.8
 Objectives of a literature search (review).
• A graduate student should spend a considerable amount of
time for reviewing the literature.
• "Research" and "literature" should go hand-in-hand in a healthy
research.
• In order to save time, you should know what you are looking
for.
• Therefore, it is better to begin by defining the exact
purpose(s) of your literature search so that you can begin
your search with a specific objective.
• When making a literature search as part of the research
process, you have three primary objectives.

PPT 2.9
 Objectives of a literature search (review). (cont.)
• After completing the literature search you will want to be able
to:
• establish the state of the art (enable you to familiarize with
existing knowledge and understanding of your topic.)
• identify deficiencies in current knowledge (reveal previously
unknown or unfamiliar sources of data and related
research)
• critically assess the most fruitful direction(s) for future
research. (get entirely new ideas and approaches to the
problem, evaluate and compare your research with
accepted research standards)

PPT
 Objectives of a literature search (review). (cont.)
• You need a good literature review because it:
• demonstrates that you know the field.
• justifies the reason for your research.
• allows you to establish your theoretical framework
and methodological focus.
• The literature review becomes your springboard
for the whole thesis.

PPT
 Types of Literature.

PPT 2.12
 Types of Literature.
• Literature can be classified as primary, secondary and tertiary
literature as shown in the following diagram:

PPT
2.13
 Where to find literature?
Library vs. Internet.

PPT
 Where to find literature? Library vs. Internet.
• In the past, a considerable portion of time (say at least 3
months) of a graduate study had to be spend in Library.
• This time was much more for those studying in the theoretical fields or
social sciences.
• There were (and still are) famous University Libraries equipped
with most up-to-date book and journal collections.
• But this is an expensive business.
• But eventually, with the explosive advance of internet
technologies, and a similar adaptation of publishing companies
to this speed, almost all printed material became available in
internet in electronic form.
• Electronic versions are much cheaper.
• Subscriptions to the so-called full-text versions of especially scientific
journals became more affordable for the University libraries.

PPT
2.15
 Where to find literature? Library vs. Internet. (cont.)
• e-Books are getting more and more common.
• Some high-schools in united states are giving tablet computers with e-
copies of the text-books to their students to avoid carrying the books
everyday to school.
• All common encyclopedias, handbooks and dictionaries have
internet versions with reasonable subscription prices.
• These internet versions provide additional features like automatic
searching, being up-to-date every time, copying and pasting, sorting
etc.
• It is obvious that new generation researchers can get access to
almost all literature from their homes or offices.
• But still libraries are being used especially for rare collections
which are not available in electronic medium yet.

PPT
2.16
 Where to find literature? Library vs. Internet. (cont.)
• If you're looking for free research materials, there are several
resources available online that offer high-quality academic
content without requiring a subscription or university
membership.
• Here are some great platforms and strategies to access free
research materials:
• Open Access Journals and Repositories
• Institutional Repositories such as MIT OpenCourseWare
• Google Scholar
• ResearchGate and Academia.edu
• Open Access Books and Theses
• CORE and Europe PMC
• Preprint Servers such as bioRxiv, medRxiv, and PsyArXiv
• Government and NGO Resources

PPT
2.17
 Initial search: Where to start
from?

PPT
 Initial search: Where to start from?
• General rule is that: Start with general information sources,
hence, gain some broad background, and proceed with
specific information sources.
• General Information Sources (mainly tertiary literature)
• Textbooks, Encyclopedias, Research reviews
• Handbooks, Guides, WEB Pages
• Review articles ("Advances in…")
• Specific Information Sources (mainly primary literature)
• Citation Indexes
• Abstracts
• Source Documents (journal articles, conference proceedings
etc)

PPT
2.19
 Initial search: Where to start from?
• Starting with specific information sources focus on very narrow
fields of concentration.
• They usually do not provide a background since they assume that the
readers already have it.
• These articles use advanced terminology and a technical style for
expression of scientific arguments.
• They focus on very narrow fields of concentration therefore, reading
some "general information sources" prior to your detailed search will
prepare you by equipping the necessary reading skills in science.
• Otherwise, there is always a risk for loosing your self-confidence in
following the literature if you directly start with very specific articles.
• Plus, reading general information sources first will give a
direction about where to find more specific information on a
given topic.
• Their list of references will help you for spotting the sources (bibliographic
data) of the articles you could read.

PPT
2.20
 How to do an efficient and
effective literature search?

PPT
 How to do an efficient and effective literature
search?
• Here are some hints on efficient and effective use of
library.
• Orient yourself with the library layout.
• Own a library card.
• Get acquainted with the cataloguing system.
• Learn how to use the on-line or card catalog
system to check for the availability of the books in
the library.
• Be aware of the "interlibrary loan system" for the
books that are not available in the library.
• Be aware of copyright issues.
PPT
2.22
 Developing search and
reading strategies.

PPT
 Developing search and reading strategies.
• A library visit may be inefficient, hence it may turn out to be a
waste of time, or result with confusion if you don't have a search
plan or reading strategy.
• Here are some tips:
• Develop a source list.
• Make a separate so-called "bibliography card" for each item
in the source list.
• Develop a systematic archiving (filing) system for your
printed material.
• Save the electronic copies systematically
• Do not read everything if you don't have to.
• Highlight or take notes while you read.
• Avoid unnecessary branching or zapping while you read a
source.
PPT
2.24
 How to search for all the
books published in your field?

PPT
 How to search for all the books published in your
field?
• Web pages of Amazon.com or other on-line books may be
sufficient for obtaining a list of all the books published in your
field but they will never be complete since they only include the
books they sell in their databases.
• Bowker's "Global Books in Print" is one of such services. It has an
amazing database of all in-print, out-of-print, and even
forthcoming books, audios and videos with optional videos.
• Global Books in Print (GBIP) is a subscription-based service,
and it is not free for individual users.
• It is typically used by libraries, academic institutions, and
businesses, so access is often provided through an
institutional subscription.
• "Book Index with Reviews" of EBSCO Information Services Group
is offering a similar search service for books.
PPT
2.26
 How to search for all the books published in your
field?
• There are free alternatives to Book Index with Reviews and
similar subscription-based services that provide bibliographic
information, reviews, and recommendations for books.
• While they may not offer the same level of comprehensive data
or expert reviews found in services like Global Books in Print or
Book Index with Reviews, there are still plenty of free resources
you can use to explore books, find reviews, and gather
information.
• Google Books, Goodreads, Open Library (Internet Archive),
LibraryThing, WorldCat, BookBub, and Amazon

PPT
2.27
 How to search for all research
articles on your research
topic? What are citation
indices or databases?

PPT
 How to search for all research articles on your
research topic? What are citation indices or
databases?
• Similar to the case for books, some institutions provide
continuously updated searchable databases of all research
articles published worldwide.
• These databases are marketed in different names and in different
formats and content.
• Some have databases in a very broad range of fields whereas
some are limited to a certain field.
• Some examples of such "indexing" services are "ISI Web of Science" of
Thomson Reuters, "Electronic Journals Service" of EBSCO, Compendex of
Engineering Village, MathSciNet of American Mathematical Society,
Chemical Abstracts of American Chemical Society etc.
• They usually serve their users via institutional subscriptions

PPT
2.29
 How to search for all research articles on your
research topic? What are citation indices or
databases? (cont.)
• There are several free citation indices and databases
• these free resources may not be as comprehensive or
advanced as subscription-based tools like Web of Science or
Scopus, they are still valuable tools for academic research.
• Here are some of the best free citation indices and databases:
• Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, CiteSeerX, BASE
(Bielefeld Academic Search Engine), OpenCitations, PubMed
Central (PMC), DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals),
CORE, JSTOR (Free Access for Limited Content), and Semantic
Scholar

PPT
2.30
 How to search for all research articles on your
research topic? What are citation indices or
databases? (cont.)
• What is an index or a database?
• An index or database is merely a searchable table composed
of rows and columns in information technology jargon.
• A row (also known as a "record") is added for each article
published. whereas each column (also called a field) contain
a different bibliographic data under different field names like
• "Article Title", "1st Author", "2nd author",...., "Journal published", "Publisher",
"Volume number", Issue number", "Page number", "Language", "Abstract",
"Keywords" etc. Thus "indexing databases" contain millions of records for all
articles published so far.
• These databases can be searched for retrieving the most
relevant records (articles) by the use of specially designed user
friendly programs that can be used through internet.

PPT
2.31
 How to search for all research articles on your
research topic? What are citation indices or
databases? (cont.)
• What is a citation index?
• A citation index is a database of all published articles (as
mentioned above) together with cited references in a record.
• This means that citation indices does not only contain the
bibliographic information for each article, but also gives the
"list of references" of that article.
• This is a very useful utility since you can directly jump to the
cited reference, or, the indexing service can provide the
number of citations a given article received so far.
• Citation indices may also have the links to the full-text version
of an article and times cited by other publications.

PPT
2.32
 What is Cited References
Search and how to do it?

PPT
 What is Cited References Search and how to do it?
• It is used to find how many times an article was cited by other
articles.
• In other words, it is used to measure the interest of other
researchers to one's research outcomes in the scientific arena.
• The number of citations received by the works of a researcher is
used as a quality indicator in academic/professional
promotions.
• Institutions ask for the total number of citations received till the
day of application for promotion.
• ISI Web of Science already shows the number of citations
received by an article in the results page as shown below

PPT
2.34
 ISI Master Journal List (MJL)
Search.

PPT
 ISI Master Journal List (MJL) Search.
• ISI Mater Journal List is a list of all journals covered in
all databases of ISI (i.e., SCI, SCI-E, SSCI, A&HCI etc).
• It is used for various purposes like:
• finding out if a journal is covered by a specific database
like SCI.
• selecting high quality journals for reading.
• selecting a high quality journal for publication of your
research article manuscript.
• exploring the journals covered by a specific database like
SCI-E.
• checking if a journal satisfies the promotion criteria of your
institution etc.
• Its subscription free
PPT
2.36
 Journal selection criteria for
reading and for publication.

PPT
 Journal selection criteria for reading and for
publication.
• It needs to be selective in what to read.
• The following criteria can also be used for finding a high quality
journal for publishing research article manuscripts as well.
• Profile of a journal
• Some journals publish only theoretical studies whereas
others may emphasize on applications.
• Most journals publish mainly full journal articles. They may
also publish review articles. Some may be devoted to only
review articles or conference proceedings.
• So you have to read the profile of a journal carefully. The
"profile" of a journal is found in the web page of the
journal.,

PPT
2.38
 Journal selection criteria for reading and for
publication.
• Peer-reviewing (Refereed journals) and Indexing
• Make sure that you read or send manuscript for publication in a
journal which is peer-reviewed by international experts of the field.
• You can assure this by selecting a journal from ISI Science Citation
Index, or at least Science Citation Index – Expanded.
• ISI, in its journal selection process, chooses journals having highly
trustable peer review system.
• History, readability and reputation of a journal
• Make sure that you read or send your manuscript to a well known
journal having a satisfactory history.
• A good hint for the age of a journal is its volume number in its latest
issue.
• For example, the latest volume number of the highly respected
journal “POLYMER” is 49; meaning that it is being published by 49
years.
PPT
2.39
 Journal selection criteria for reading and for
publication.
• Publication Lag.
• Publication lag is the time period between the date of manuscript
submission and the date of acceptance for publication.
• It is important for especially PhD students who must publish a paper
before the thesis defense, or academicians awaiting for publication
for an academic promotion as it is the case in Eastern
Mediterranean University.
• Impact factor
• Impact factor is an indication of average number of citations to
articles published in a journal.
• Impact factor is a quality indicator for a journal.

PPT
2.40
 Exercise

Discussion • Discuss about types of research, outcome

PPT 2.41
 • What is literature?
• Objectives of a literature search (review).
• Types of Literature.
• Where to find literature? Library vs. Internet.
• Initial search: Where to start from?
• How to do an efficient and effective literature
search?
• Developing search and reading strategies.
• How to search for all the books published in your
field?
• How to search for all research articles on your
research topic? What are citation indices or
databases?
• What is Cited References Search and how to do
it?
• ISI Master Journal List (MJL) Search.
• Journal selection criteria for reading and for
publication.
PPT 1.42
 Thank You!
Any Questions?