Doing Literature Survey: Some General Tips on Sources to Be Consulted

T. S. KumbarResource Centre22nd July, 2008

Outline Information Generation Cycle Types of Information Sources Research Process Literature Survey

Search in Bibliographic/Citation Databases ( Abstracting/Indexing)

Use of RC Resources Search in Library Catalogues Searching on the Web

Reference/Citation Style Resources Avail RC Services & Assistance Evaluation of Web Resources Staying in Touch with Recent Literature IPR issues/ Plagiarism Conclusion

Information Generation Cycle

It begins with a idea. The idea is researched & developed. Initial findings are shared with colleagues in the

research community, research guides, often by email, news groups, or in person.

Preliminary results are communicated in a letter to the editor, comment in a journal or brief papers e.g., Electronics Letters.

Full findings are presented in a conference

Information Generation Cycle Results appear in a research or technical reports

or thesis. Findings are submitted to a journal publication. Paper is indexed in a database Idea is incorporated in to text books, reviews,

encyclopedia, handbooks and other sources. Book is indexed in pub/lib. catalogue. Information contained in these sources is used. Information use triggers new ideas The Cycle continues

Players in the Information Cycle

Scientists, engineers, academicians, researchers and others

Authors Publishers Abstracting & Indexing Databases Aggregators Libraries & Information Centres Users

Types of Information Sources

The entire scholarly information sources are grouped in to,

Primary Sources Secondary Sources Tertiary Sources

Primary Sources… Sources that include first, the publications of

original research findings, record of events, original thoughts, ideas etc. Journals Conference proceedings Dissertations/Theses Patents Standards Reports Plan/policy documents

Primary Sources Research monographs Autobiographies Manuscripts News papers Magazines Annual reports Correspondences Speeches Minutes of meetings etc.

Secondary Sources…

Sources that digest, analyze, evaluate, interpret and present the information in organized manner contained in primary sources. Review articles Text books Biographies Indexing & abstracting serials/databases Bibliographies Book reviews

Secondary Sources

News digests Encyclopedia Handbooks Dictionaries and Thesaurus Directories Almanacs Geographical sources, etc.

Tertiary Sources These sources are compilation of primary and

secondary sources. These serve as a guide in locating various

information sources on specific subjects Usually compiled keeping in view researches and

academicians in mind Library subject guides Pathfinders Computer Science and Computing: A guide to

the literature Guide to sources on nanotechnology etc

Research Process Selecting an area of interest Reading background information Selecting the promising research problem (proposal) Determining types of information needs Searching literature- from all types of sources Refining the topic & restating the problem Analyze the literature Work on the research problem Putting it together ( writing) Reference & citation format/style Reference & citation of sources collected Presenting the final report/dissertation/thesis

Literature Survey…

Need for literature survey To know what others have done To follow the trend and identify the problem To avoid duplication To support your argument To follow theoretical, empirical, methodological

and design work of related fields To gather data to extend your methods, findings

& discussions Basically, it serve as basis for the practical work

Literature Survey… Selecting specific area

Split in to sub topics Identify keywords, phrases, subject headings, etc.

Subject Dictionaries, Thesauri, etc. Selecting materials for background reading (use RC

resources) Encyclopedia Handbooks Text books Monographs Select articles, reviews, (print& e-resources) Dissertations (previous batch)

Refine your area/select the topic/proposal Write down the statement, proposal with scope,

objective, hypothesis, methodology, data collection and analysis, deciding style format, compiling bibliographies

Search in Bibliographic/Citation Databases ( Abstracting/Indexing)

INSPEChttp://www.ei.org/databases/inspec.html

COMPENDEXhttp://www.ei.org/databases/compendex.html

Web of Sciencehttp://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/products/wos/

SCOPUS http://www.scopus.com/scopus/home.url

Use of RC Resources ACM Digital Library

http://portal.acm.org/ ACM Guide to Computing Literature

http://portal.acm.org/guide.cfm ASA Digital Library

http://asadl.org/ ACM Computing Reviews

http://www.reviews.com/ IEL Online Library

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/

Use of RC Resources

ITU Recommendationshttp://www.itu.int/publications/

JSTOR Archivehttp://www.jstor.org/

LNCS Online Collectionhttp://www.springerlink.com/

ScienceDirect (Comp. Sc.)http://www.sciencedirect.com/

Springer Online Engineering Journalshttp://www.springerlink.com/content/103882/

Search in Library Catalogues

RC Catalogue http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/catalog/rccatalog.html#rc

Catalogues of other librarieshttp://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/catalog/rccatalog.html#olibraries

Union Catalogues Online Book shops

e.g., Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/, Firstandsecond.com & others

Publisher Catalogueshttp://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/publishers.html

Searching on the Web

Visible web Invisible web- three times bigger than the visible We strongly recommend you to use,

Scholarly Search Engines/Resources http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/scholarly_search_engines.html

Subject Gateways/Virtual Libraries http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/gateways.html

Open Access Resources http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/open_access_res.html

Scholarly Search Engines/Resources…

SCIRUShttp://www.scirus.com/

CiteSeerhttp://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/

Scitopia.orghttp://www.scitopia.org/scitopia/

Google Scholarhttp://scholar.google.co.in/

Ingentahttp://www.ingentaconnect.com/

Scholarly Search Engines/Resources

Collection of Computer Science Bibliographieshttp://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/

Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library http://www.ncstrl.org/

DBLP Computer Science Bibliographyhttp://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/index.html

Subject Gateways/Virtual Libraries

INFOMINEhttp://infomine.ucr.edu/

Intute http://www.intute.ac.uk/

Internet Public Libraryhttp://www.ipl.org/ref/

Internet Scout Reporthttp://scout.wisc.edu/

Librarians Index Internethttp://lii.org/

National Science Digital Libraryhttp://nsdl.org/

BUBLhttp://bubl.ac.uk/

Open Access Resources

Directory of Open Access Journalshttp://www.doaj.org/

Open J-Gatehttp://www.openj-gate.com/

Eprints Archive [arXiv]http://arxiv.org/help

OAIsterhttp://www.oaister.org/

Reference/Citation Style Resources…

IEEE Editorial Style http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/transjnl/stylemanual.pdf

IEEE Computer Society Style Guide http://www.computer.org/portal/site/ieeecs/menuitem.c5efb9b8ade9096b8a9ca0108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=ieeecs_level1&path=ieeecs/publications/author/style&file=index.xml&xsl=generic.xsl&

IEEE Standards Style Manualhttp://standards.ieee.org/guides/style/2007_Style_Manual.pdf

Chicago/Turabian Style http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/turabian.html

Harvard Style APA Style ACS Style AMA Style MLA Style AIP Style

Reference/Citation Style Resources

Avail RC Services & Assistance

Send us your topics to assist you better Assistance in literature searching/locating Inter Library Loan Service Document Delivery Services Purchase of Reading Materials Permission to visit other libraries Delivering documents when you are off campus

Evaluation of Web Resources

Is it somebody’s personal page? What type of domain does it come from? Is it published by well known organization? Is the page dated? Is it current enough? What are the author’s credentials on the subject? Are sources documented with footnotes or links? If it is reproduced information ( from some other source), is

it complete, not altered, not fake or forged? Are there links to other resources on the topic? Is the page listed in one or more reputable directories or

virtual libraries? What do others say about the author or responsible body?

Staying in Touch with Recent Literature

Table of Content Alerts Visit RC site regularly Join email based discussion forums Watch out for Conferences resources (RC site) Visit Blogs Visit professional/R&D org. sites Visit major publisher sites Subscribe to research news Visit professional peer’s sites

IPR issues/ Plagiarism

IPR Copyright Patents Designs Trademarks

Plagiarism Be aware & avoid

http://web.mit.edu/writing/Resources/Teachers/detect.plagiarism.html

Conclusion

Knowing what others have done Referring the resources with due credit Optimum use of RC resources Seek RC assistance Stay in touch with recent developments

Questions & Clarifications?