History 4013:Research StrategiesLiterature Review
Frederic Murray Assistant ProfessorMLIS, University of British ColumbiaBA, Political Science, University of Iowa
Instructional Services LibrarianAl Harris Library [email protected]
American Southwest & Borderlands
19th & 20th Century Histories
Outline of session• What is a literature review?• Why review the literature?• Plan your search/Keywords/Boolean • Citations/Identifying//Reading/Tracking• Choosing appropriate
Sources/Databases• Google Tricks• Sample searches• A good literature review…
Major Concerns
• Topic Selection
• Narrowing the search
• Using the library effectively
What is a literature review?“… a systematic…method for
identifying, evaluating and interpreting the …work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners.”
FINK, A., 1998. Conducting literature research reviews: from paper to
the internet. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage., p.3.
Why review the literature?
“…without it you will not acquire an understanding of your topic, of what has already been done on it, how it has been researched, and what the key issues are.”
HART, E., 1998. Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research imagination, by E. Hart and M. Bond. London: Sage., p.1.
Define what you want to know “I am looking for literature and
sources that focus on Spanish exploration and settlement. ”
Use this statement to choose keywords and key phrases
Define key words and phrases
Spanish
Exploration
Settlement
or Mexican
or Conquest
or Colonization
Accurate SearchRequiresAccurate Language
Identifying Keywords
• Identify the significant terms and concepts that describe your topic from your thesis statement or research question.
• These terms will become the key for searching catalogs, databases and search engines for information about your subject.
Boolean
• AND = Narrow
• OR = Expand
• NOT = Exclude
Class Exercise
• Keyword Building ExerciseTopic: Spanish Exploration & Settlements
• Thesaurus.com
Spanish Exploration & Settlements
Missions
Jesuits
Explorers
Southwest Exploration
Mexico
Texas Conquest
Trade
Books
• Al Harris Catalog• Open World Cat • Ebrary
Open World Cat
• Meta search engine for online catalogs of libraries all over the world. Search for any book using a geographic location for the closest sources.
• Over 9000 libraries combined. • If you find it in WorldCat, and it's
not in our library, we can get it through ILL.
• CREATE A USER ACCOUNT
Ebrary: eBooks • 24/7• Full Text Searching*• Highlight Markup• Note Taking• Changeable Font Size• Multiplicity of Use
• CREATE A BOOKSHELF
Choose Appropriate Databases• Google is not (usually) the answer• Start with Library Resources for
your Subject First• Search a range of databases• Think about the range of sources:
books, journal articles, statistics, websites, conference reports…
Journals
• Southwestern Historical Quarterly– Found in Project Muse (2006 to
Current)• Hispanic American Historical
Review– Found in Project Muse
• The Southwestern Historical Quarterly – Found in JSTOR (1912-2007)
• Journal of the Southwest– Found in JSTOR
Databases: Social Sciences• JSTOR• Project Muse• America: History and Life with Full
Text• Historical Abstracts with Full Text• And Many More…..
JSTOR
• Includes archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
• Search by discipline: History
Project Muse
• Peer-reviewed journals• Wide variety of humanities and
social science subjects• Complete journal content,
including charts, graphs, and images
EBSCO Databases
• America: History and Life with Full Text
• Historical Abstracts with Full Text
We think of citation patterns as the flow of information," says Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington. "That's what a citation is — the trace that an idea flowed from one place to another."
Handout: Identifying types of citations• Book• Journal or Magazine• Conference Reports• Newspaper Article• Website
Handout: Reading citationsA citation is a short, multi-part description of a specific information source. It provides
the information that is needed to find a particular source. Journal citations contain such
basic information as:
Snowballing
• Building on the works of others
• A scholarly article will always have References/Bibliography
• A bibliography is always ripe for
the picking…
Tracking Citations
Damp, Jonathan E., Stephen A. Hall and Susan J. Smith 2002 Early Irrigation on the Colorado Plateau near Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. American Antiquity 67: 665-676
Tracking Citations
Damp, Jonathan E., Stephen A. Hall and Susan J. Smith 2002 Early Irrigation on the Colorado Plateau near Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico. American Antiquity 67: 665-676
Class Exercise
• Is it a book or a journal?
• Check the appropriate source– Open WorldCat/Ebrary/Al Harris Catalog – Periodicals List
• If the citation is an article, do we have access through the databases?
Google Search
• PageRank (algorithm)– 500 million variables– 2 Billion Terms
• Bias?
• Popularity is a Proxy for Importance
Personalized Search
• Google’s algorithm will suggest “what is best for you” – based on past searches.
• It’s as if we looked up the same topic in an encyclopedia and each found different entries.
Personalized Search
• Find information that is most likely to reinforce your own worldview
• We begin to lose dissenting opinion/conflicting points of view
• Yet search seems neutral, objective, unbiased.
Personalized Search & the Internet
• When ideology drives the dissemination of information, knowledge is compromised.
• Inadvertently we indoctrinate ourselves with our own ideas.
• Google is likely to direct you to material with which you already agree.
What are the repercussions for research carried out in an environment where Search itself is being compromised?
Google: Improve Your SearchesSite Specific Command
What it does: searches only specific domains
What to type: Zuni Indians site:edu Zuni Indians site:gov
Google Scholar
• Google Scholar provides a simple way to search for scholarly literature. Search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
Google Scholar
• Works best for Citations
• Restrictions to Content– Fee-based
– Often your Library already owns material
– We’re working on improving access
Southwest History:Internet Resources• Parallel Histories: Spain, United St
ates and the American Frontier• U.S.-Mexico Border Issues: A Selec
ted Bibliography from the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Collections
• Exploring Hispanic History and Culture
Review
• Keywords/Boolean• Books:
– Open WorldCat/Ebrary/Catalog• Databases:
– JSTOR/Project Muse/American History EBSCO
• Google Site Search/Scholar
Class Exercise
• Divided into teams of four
• Find 2 articles & 2 books on Spanish Settlement and Exploration in the North American Southwest
• Use JSTOR/Ebrary/Open WorldCat
• Jot down Titles & Sources
A good literature review…• Goes beyond simply listing relevant
literature• Is a critical essay • Assesses the range of literature
available• Is a critical summary of the literature• Examines the background against
which your own research is set• Forms a significant section of your
dissertation
A good literature review…
• Offers opinions and personal response to the different writings
• Relates different writings to each other, compares and contrasts
• Does not take the literature at face value
• Shows an awareness of the theories and values that underpin the research
• Uses particular language: authors assert, argue, state, conclude, contend