Smart Literature Searching by Susanne Noll

WEDNESDAY, 6 /08 /2015

ULWAZI

SUSANNE NOLL

Smart searching techniques


Learning Outcome :

By the end of this session you will be able to 1. Undertake a literature search2. Use the internet for research3. Find theses, conference papers and specialist

materials4. Understand primary sources such as data,

newspapers, official publications


Why do we need a search strategy?

Promotes deeper learning about your question

Leads to better yield of quality researchSaves time in the long run


Keywords may not be enough

If not, select more words by using:

synonyms alternate spelling, translations related terms / words / subjects narrower or broader terms


Most databases offer Thesauri


Examples:

corporate culture: organizational behavior/character

corporate identity merger: acquisition, take-over, fusion, combination

unification profitability: profit, advantage, return on investment, shareholder value


1. Undertake a literature search

Principles, tips and techniques Quick one-stop-shop search Databases Example EbscoHost, Basic Search, Advanced Search,

• Alerts • Saved Searches

Scopus - European Bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal

articles. It covers 53 million records | 21,915 titles | 5,000 publishers Web of Science – US Over 90 million records covering 5,300 social science publications in 55 disciplines


Search tipsUse Boolean operators AND, OR, NOTUse truncation and symbols (*, ?) for finding

variant word forms and spellingsFor phrase searching use “ “

In some cases you can specify the fields to search in, e.g. title, subject, keywords


AND OR


Google Scholar -

Good to use in complement to Scopus

including books, conference papers, non-American journals, journals on the fields of strategy, management, international business, education

easy access to published articles, HOWEVER

offers results of inconsistent accuracy,

inadequate, and less often updated – no reliable impact factor

frequency of its updates is unknown

Google Scholar is vulnerable to spam

uses a PAGE RANK ALGORITHM


PageRank is a link analysis algorithm and it assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within these.




GOOGLE SCHOLAR

• Free and accessible for scholarly research• Includes journal and conference papers, theses and

dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research

• Login via EZProxy• UCT has access to online subscriptions

• Please consult the following Youtube video:• “What Google Scholar can do for you” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcrM4sX5W8c


GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Uses natural language Tips and tricks Automatic sorted by relevance Determined by the number of citations May not be most relevant to your search Refine by year – click on sort by date” or “since xxxx” or

“custom range”


GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Inverted commas for phrase Boolean operators AND OR Google uses dash instead of NOT For specific authors: author:Smith (no spaces) similarly for specific formats Format:pdf and site:nytimes.com election SFX – availability on campus and logged in Librarylink allows to access digital repositories


GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Underneath each result : useful links Closely related articles Cite – 3 different formats to copy and paste From here: Import directly to Endnote and/or Refworks Save : if you have created a Google account (gmail) You will have “MY Library” in which you can collect


GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Such as electronic thesis collectionType in author’s surname and thesis titleE.g Fleishman “remembering in the

postcolony”Scroll down until you get the thesis linkTry authors surname and the affiliation, such

as University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria


2. Using the internet for your research

The following slides are taken from a “Web Searching workshop” which was facilitated by Peter Underwood (2012) and Mary Nassimbeni (2012)


Internet SearchingThe information retrieval problem

• Mismatching of vocabularies – Synonyms: e.g. railway / railroad car / automobile– Polysemes: e.g. table (furniture) / table (data presentation)

• Queries are ambiguous, and are rarely complete – or accurate – statements of need

• Document descriptions and texts do not always reflect content and intended use accurately

• The user is the ultimate judge of what seems relevant -- but we don’t know much about how this judgment is made


Search structure

• keywords describing important concepts– synonyms– phrases

• linkages between keywords• limits on what is retrieved

– language– time period– country– format

• quantity


Search engine choice • South African-based search engine, useful for locating national and regional information

http://www.ananzi.co.za

Master site for South African search engines: http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/SouthAfrica.html

• Focus on publication form http://www.bpubs.com

http://www.ananzi.co.za/

http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/SouthAfrica.html

http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/SouthAfrica.html

http://www.bpubs.com/



Meta Search Engine

• Allows searching of multiple search services• Do not normally hold their own data• May be customised to use selected services• Example:

http://www.dogpile.com

http://www.dogpile.com/


Evaluating web sites and web materialTraditional criteria to be applied– Accuracy– Authority– Objectivity– Currency– CoverageAdditional challenges


How to go about evaluationAdvocacy, orgBusiness, comInformational, edu ac govNews, usu comPersonal, often a ~

Use the checklist: the more often you can answer ‘yes’ the more likely it is that the site/material is reliable


Checklist

Authority• Can you identify organisation/company/person

responsible?• Is there a link describing goals, purpose, nature of

organisation?• Are there contact details?


Accuracy• Are sources for any factual information listed so they can be

verified?• Can you detect some sort of quality control? – look at

grammar, spelling etc.• Are charts, graphs clearly labelled and easy to read?


Objectivity• Are biases clearly stated?• Is it easy to distinguish between informational and

advertising content?


CurrencyAre there dates to indicate

• When the page was written?• When it was placed on the web?• When it was last revised?


Coverage• Is there an indication that the page has been completed?• Is there a print equivalent?• Is it clear what topics the page intends to address?


Contemporary sources, but do remember the evaluation criteria

Blogs http://www.google.com/blogsearchhttp://www.findblogs.com/

Twitterhttp://www.twitter.com

Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com

Wiki http://wiki.com

– Accuracy– Authority– Objectivity– Currency– Coverage

http://www.google.com/blogsearch

http://www.findblogs.com/

http://www.twitter.com/

http://www.facebook.com/

http://wiki.com/


Specialised Search engines:

Health Databases such as Medline, PubMed, Clinical Key, OvidSP for Biology and Medicine related subjects

Law databases such as Westlaw, Sabinet Legal, Lexis Nexis


3. Finding theses, conference papers and specialist research materials

SA theses : www.lib.uct.ac.za Databases SA Cat Current and completed researchNDLTD (Theses and Dissertations)African Digital Repository

http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/lib/useful-links

International theses: www.lib.uct.ac.za Databases ProQuest Dissertations and Theses

http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/




http://search.proquest.com/pqdt/index?accountid=14500

http://search.proquest.com/pqdt/index?accountid=14500


Specialist research materials


4. Understand primary sources such as data, newspapers, official publications

Financial data


Newspapers

www.lib.uct.ac.za Databases, Newspaper Source via EBSCOhost

(Fulltext) Lexis Nexis Academic (includes Financial Mail,

Business Day, Financial Times, Sunday Times, The Star, The Herald)

SA Media (Sabinet) Library PressDisplay



About Government Publications

•They are important sources of primary information. •Cover all subjects (from agriculture to zoology.) •Can be in any format (from book to DVD.) •Can be historical or very current (from 1800 Cape gazettes to this week’s Government gazettes on-line.). •Are publications & documents that originate in government. •Are usually not books explaining politics or public administration.• Are not publications by political parties or NGO’s


DataFirst DataFirst is a unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa devoted to survey research in Africa. The unit operates a Research Data Centre and provides basic and advanced training in microdata analysis.

Eighty20Eighty20 provides businesses, marketers, policy makers and developmental organisations with strategic and actionable insights from data. We offer clients online access to market research databases, ready made data-rich reports on topical issues, as well as a full range of bespoke business consulting projects. Our economists, MBAs, actuaries, and statisticians provide a unique combination of skills to turn data into insights.

http://www.uct.ac.za/


Author searches (e.g. H-Index) – Scopus, Web of ScienceJournal searches (e.g impact factor) - JCR

Use bibliographies

In summary:Choose effective search terms (keywords)Use the advanced search option (if one is available)Use Boolean operatorsUse truncationUse the thesaurus


More possible search strategies: By accident Discussions with peers Recommendation Following references Citation searching Keyword searching Systematic reviews Alerts


Thank you!

Questions?

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Smart Literature Searching by Susanne Noll

Education