Where to search for scientific literature?
This guide or CMU Library website is the right place, although google or google scholar is more popular for two reasons:
- CMU library collection includes a variety of scientific publications.
- You don't need to pay extra money to get access to the library collection.
How to search for scientific literature?
Two major strategies:
- Searching disciplinary databases: this can be used at the beginning of a research stage by either keyword or subject, although keyword and subject index can represent concepts differently.
- Tracking relevant and important publications by citation network, authors. As you find a highly relevant publication, tracking its citations / references is more efficient. Usually, the challenging task is to identify a central debate or argument, and significant publications in particular research area to prepare for you to develop the research literature. There are a few of techniques:
- Use citation databases: Web of Science or Scopus to track highly cited publications, research frontiers, lead researchers. Click this link to watch a search example https://www.screencast.com/t/35NiutkAlJTI.
- Use textbooks and major reference books to identify landmark studies, research history,
- Use systematic review or meta analysis publications to track relevant publications on a topic.
