bodleian social science library

Turning a research question into an effective search strategy

Louise Clarke, Bodleian Social Science Librarian

Kate Williams, Bodleian Education Librarian

Bodleian Social Science Library

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Part 1: The literature

review process

Relevant scholarly research

Cross-searching

Thesaurus

Natural language

Keywords Boolean

Pearl-growingCitation

chaining

Part 2: Searching

Abstracting and indexing services

Full-text databases

Internet

search

engines

Part 3: Search tools

Part 4: Alerts

RSS /

email

New articles matching

search terms

Tables of contents from

selected journals New citations

referencing ‘parent article’

Part 5: Citations and bibliometrics

Researcher 3

cites

Researcher 2 cites Researcher 1

Impact

By the end of the session, you should:

• Understand the literature review process;• Be able to plan an effective and structured search for your thesis;• Know where to look for different types of information;• Have evaluated different methods of searching;• Have developed search skills that can be applied across different resources;• Have had a chance to practise;• Know where to come for future help.

Learning outcomes

Part 1: The literature

review process

Literature review discussion groups

1. Why is the literature review important?2. Why be methodical? 3. How do you choose your search terms?4. Where do you plan to search for the

literature?5. What sources are you trying to find?

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Source Suffragette posters and pamphlets

Secondary Source Book about female emancipation in Britain

Tertiary Source Dictionary of feminism

• In general a primary source is a work not based on or derived from another source (e.g. contemporary records, data, conference papers, photographs, working papers, etc.)• Secondary sources include the use / analysis / interpretation of primary (and other) sources• Consider the relationship between the researcher and the source in the context of the research topic• Definitions of primary and secondary sources vary by disciplineLOMBARD, E. 2010. Primary and Secondary Sources.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36, 3, pp. 250-253.

Sources

• Grey literature refers to material not easily found through conventional publishing channels • Produced by government agencies, NGO’s, IGOs, academic departments and research groups • Includes working papers, policy documents, occasional papers, briefings, conference papers, newsletters, etc. • Produced in print and electronic formats • Ephemeral nature has implications for dissemination, identification and access – it is out there but may be hard to find

Primary sources include grey literature

How to structure the literature review process

1. Preliminary searching and browsing– Scan abstracts and skim-read papers– Identify current directions of research – How will you contribute new knowledge?

2. Structured searching with appropriate syntax– Identify the key articles and heavily-cited papers– Establish key authors, organizations and sources– Commit to in-depth consideration and re-reading of papers

3. Develop search– Track citations to follow research connections– “Cast net more widely” in terms of resources searched– Set up alerts for new content

• Stay focused on the research question and keep a search log

Relevant scholarly research

Cross-searching

Thesaurus

Natural language

Keywords Boolean

Pearl-growingCitation

chaining

Part 2: Searching

Start with a clear research question

Start with a clear research question

e.g.

What is being done to help prevent AIDS in Zimbabwe?

Search method 1: Natural language searching

Search method 2: Keyword searching

Example - Keywords

What is being done to help prevent AIDS in Zimbabwe?

Aids Prevent Zimbabwe

aids prevent(ion) Zimbabwehiv interventionhuman immunodeficiency virus awarenessacquired immune educationdeficiency syndrome

Wild card characters

• Truncation may be used in a number of ways:– * for right side truncation (e.g. plurals and alternative

word endings) • interven* retrieves intervention(s), intervene, intervening

– ? for a single character (e.g. alternative spellings)• organi?ation for organisation or organization

– $ for one character or zero characters• behavio$r retrieves behavior or behaviour

• Check the database online help (the symbols given above are common but not universal)

Boolean logic

OR

NOT

HIV or AIDS

prevention not treatment

AND AIDS and ZimbabweNARROWS

SEARCH

BROADENSSEARCH

NARROWSSEARCH

Further search techniques

• Use parentheses to group the order in which terms are searched (or use structured search boxes)

• Use the proximity operator NEAR to specify how close two words appear to each other– E.g. University NEAR/4 students

• Search for a phrase by using quote marks – “united kingdom”

• Limit your search to particular fields (title, author, abstract, keywords, etc.)

• Apply search filters such as date to limit a search

Example – Keyword search string

• Aids prevention in Zimbabwe– Search 1 = hiv OR “human immunodeficiency

virus” OR aids OR “acquired immune deficiency syndrome”

– Search 2 = prevent* OR interven* OR aware* OR educat*

– Search 3 = Zimbabwe– Search 4 = #1 AND #2 AND #3

• Demo - SCOPUS http://www.scopus.com/home.url

Search method 3: Database thesauri

• Use database thesauri and subject headings to identify new and useful search terms

• Terms are assigned by the database editors from a set of controlled vocabulary (thesaurus) • May also be keywords assigned by the author

• Broader - brings together synonyms / related terms under one heading (sensitivity)

• More focused - looks for articles about your topic, not just with your words in the article (specificity)

thesaurus term = “Higher education”

Higher Education

Higher education

College UniversityTertiaryeducation

HE HEI

Thesaurus example – ERIC

• Academic Achievement– Use for: Academic Performance : Academic

Progress : Academic Success : Educational Achievement : Educational Level : Scholastic Achievement : Student Achievement

• Narrower terms: Educational Attainment• Broader terms: Achievement • Related terms: Academic Failure : Instructional

Effectiveness • http://search.proquest.com/professional/eric/index

Search examples - ERIC

Search term Free text search Subject heading“Academic Achievement” 62,935 59,970

Search term Free text search“Academic Success” 3,276

Academic Success 16,506

Academic NEAR/6 Success 5,449

Search method 4: Cross - searching

• OxLIP+ Keyword searching of up to 5 Oxford databases – Limited to certain databases– Retrieval is unwieldy

• SOLO Journal Articles Search – Rough and ready– Produces poor results in many cases

A note about searching for authors

• Use truncation to find all forms of an author’s name– To find articles by J.R.W. Yates search for yates j*

• For common names, truncation may not be appropriate – try entering the initials instead– yates jrw or yates j r w depending on the database

• Compound names may be fused together or separated – punctuation may be replaced with a space – To find articles by M. D’Angelo search for d’angelo m* OR dangelo m* OR d angelo m*

• Database tools can help you identify authors– Author index– Author search (SCOPUS) / Author finder (Web of Science) for including

information about their subject and institution

Abstracting and indexing services

Full-text databases

Internet search

engines

Part 3: Search tools

• SOLO http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk • OxLIP+ http://oxlip-plus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk • OU E-Journals http://ejournals.bodleian.ox.ac.uk • Libguides http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/• Single Sign On Sign into Nexus Email or SOLO My Account and use browser session to access e-journals and OxLIP+ databases from outside the Oxford network

Access to online resources provided by the Bodleian Libraries

Google Scholar Library Links

Selecting databases for a literature review

Tolan, P., Henry, D., Schoeny, M., Bass, A. & Tolan, P. 2008, "Mentoring interventions to affect juvenile delinquency and associated problems", Campbell Systematic Reviews, vol. 16.

Identifying search tools• Ask yourself two questions:

– What subject disciplines might be pertinent to my research topic?

• Economics, health, public policy, education, anthropology, sociology, geography, etc.

– Which information formats might contain relevant research?

• Journal articles, discussion and working papers, books, official papers, datasets, websites, newspaper articles, etc.

• Next, take a look at the appropriate LibGuides– http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Major Platforms

• Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts • Dissertations and theses (full-text)• British Education Index (N.B. Proquest Professional)• ERIC (Education)• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts • National Criminal Justice Reference Service • Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS)• Sociological Abstracts• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (WPSA)

International Bibliography of the Social Scienceshttp://search.proquest.com

• Disciplines: anthropology, cultural studies, demography, economics, education, political science, religious studies, sociology, etc. • Broad coverage of international material• Records indexed geographically as well as thematically

– Dissertations and Theses

• The world’s most comprehensive collection of social science theses• From 1997 onwards over a million full-text theses are available to download • Dissertations from July 1980 onwards include a 350 word abstract• Earlier dissertations offer citation information (dating back to 1637)

– IBSS – Search Syntax

(ageing OR aging) NEAR/4 population OR declin* NEAR/4 (fertility OR birth)

AND (family OR social) AND polic*

AND Japan

• EconLit • Global Health

• Medline

• PsycINFO

• Abstracts in Social Gerontology

• Business Source Complete • Family & Society Studies Worldwide

• Historical Abstracts

• Philosopher’s Index

• AnthropologyPlus

• ChicanoDatabase • Francis

• Russian Academy of Sciences Bibliographies

• WorldCat

Primary Sources

• Multi-regional• Nexis UK (BBC Monitoring International Reports under Countries Tab)• Factiva• World News Connection• Foreign Broadcast Information Service• Emerging Markets Information Service

• Regional• Nikkei Telecom21(Japanese news and finance)• Russian Central newspapers • Pravda (1912-2009)• China Core Newspapers Database • WiseSearch (China)• Ethnic Newswatch (mainly US, ethnic publications)

• Archives• Proquest (New York Times, Guardian, Observer, Washington Post) • Separate Digital Archives available for the Times, FT, Daily Mirror and Economist• Times of India archive

News

News - comparison of content - example

Nexis FactivaMexico El Norte (Spanish; 2004-)

Reforma (Spanish; 2004-)Mural (Spanish; 2004-)Palabra (Spanish; 2004-)

El Norte (Spanish; 2004-)Reforma (Spanish; 2004-)El Universal (Spanish; 2002-)

Moldova Moldavskie Vedomosti (Russian; 2006-)Nezavisimaya Moldova (Russian; 2006-)

Namibia The Namibian (English;1997-)

Nepal Kathmandu Post (English; 2008-) Nepali Times (English; 2006-)

Kathmandu Post (English; 2008-) Nepali Times (English; 2006-)

Netherlands De Telegraaf (Dutch; 1999-)De Volksrant (Dutch; 1995-)NRC Handelsblad (Dutch; 1990-)Trouw (Dutch; 1992-)

De Telegraaf (Dutch; 2008-)

Multi-regionalESDS InternationalWorld Bank / UN / IMFOECD iLibraryEmerging Markets Information Service

RegionalIndiastatChina Data OnlineLatin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP)Latinobarómetro (via ESDS)Historical Statistics of the United StatesInter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research archive (US)Russian State/CIS Statistical Publications

Data and Statistics

• Subject-specific websites, portals and current awareness services e.g. ELDIS and Social Policy Digest

• Academic institutions• Governmental and Inter-Governmental Organisations• NGO and campaigning sites• Other access points e.g. SCOPUS, ZETOC, Open SIGLE

Sources for grey literature

• International Inter-governmental Organization webpage finder inc. UN and its subsidiaries: http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/IGOs.htm#UNSUBS

• PolicyFILE: research organizations, think tanks, university programmes and NGOs listed: http://www.policyfile.com/organizations/organizations.do

• Forced Migration Online (FMO): Lists NGOs and IGOs, (search by country or subject): http://www.forcedmigration.org/research-resources/organizations

• CIAO: lists many university research institutes http://www.ciaonet.org/main/wps.html

Lists of IGO’s, NGO’s and Institutes

Theses and dissertations ProQuest Dissertations & Theses / Index to Theses / Ethos / ORA / SOLO

Conference proceedings & working papersZETOC (conference proceedings, British Library)Working papers generally available on institutional websites or subject based repositories such as REPEC (economics papers)

ReportsOxford Analytica (Regional analysis)Country Reports (via Business Source Complete)World Development Reports, World Bank

Etc. Declassified US Govt Docs / Forced Migration Online / Aluka

Theses, conferences, reports, etc.

Secondary and Tertiary Sources

Major aggregators, e.g. JSTORFull-text of over 1000 journals Moving wall

All major publishers, e.g. SAGE, Wiley, OUP, CUP, Taylor and Francis, Brill Area journal collections

China Academic Journals (CNKI) / China Online Journals (Wanfang) / Taiwan Electronic Periodical Services / JAIRO: Japanese Institutional Repositories Online / Central and Eastern European Online Library

Full-text e-journals

E-books• Packages, e.g. Oxford Scholarship Online• Series, e.g. Handbooks in Economics (Elsevier)• Individual titles listed in SOLO• Google Books

• International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioural Sciences

• International Encyclopedia of Human Geography

Online reference works

Sage Research Methods Online

Sage Reference Online

• SOLO

• British Library Catalogue

• COPAC (UK)

• WorldCat (Global)

Catalogues

Official Papers

Legal Resources

Systematic Reviews

Special CollectionsArea Studies

Subject-specific

Research methods

http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries/subjects/librarians

MapsArchives

• Run your search string from exercise 1 in a relevant database (s) of your choice– You may wish to use the Proquest platform, initially

searching all databases. At the results screen click on the option to refine your search by ‘databases’ to note the “hit rates” in the different resources.

• Explore the database search functionality / refine your search

• Email yourself relevant results for your research topic

Practical exercise 2: Online searching

Part 4: Alerts

RSS / email

New articles matching search

terms

Tables of contents from

selected journalsNew citations

referencing ‘parent article’

Table of contents alerts

• Alerts of new issues of journals• Provide tables of contents – browse online

o ZETOC – British Library’s service:• Over 20,000 journal titles + conferences• Alerting service – access via Single Sign On• N.B. Oxford may not have all journals• Via OxLIP+: http://oxlip-plus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

Database Alerts

• Subject databases • Create and save sophisticated searches• Receive alerts when new publications come in

that match your topic

• e.g. Proquest databases – search alerts• Web of Science – citation alerts• OxLIP+: http://oxlip-plus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

Set up RSS feeds for new content

•

•

Register for an RSS feed reader

•

•

Part 5: Citations and bibliometrics

Researcher 3 cites

Researc

her 2 cites

Researcher

1

Impact

Using citations to identify key papers and related research

• Web of Science

• •

GAVEL, Y. and L. ISELID, 2008. Web of Science and Scopus: a journal title overlap study. Online Information Review ,32, no. 1, pp. 8-21.

Coverage

Web of KnowledgeCitation Searching

http://www.webofknowledge.com/WOS

• Identify current research based on earlier research

• Analyze the impact of a publication on other research in the field or across subject boundaries

Citation mapping (ISI WoS)

• Explore up to two generations of backward and forward citations

Using bibliometrics to assess impact

• citation counts

• h-index • journal impact factor

Article Citation Count Example: ISI’s Web of Science, Dec 2011

Researcher H-index Example: ISI’s Web of Science, Dec 2011

Journal Impact FactorExample: ISI’s Web of Knowledge, Political Science, 2010

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