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CHBE 594 Lect 13The Literature Search

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Background

A literature search is a key step in writing a proposal Reviewers are looking to throw out proposals.

Having a poor literature search is a good excuse to throw out a proposal.

If you ignore the reviewers key paper from 1980 you will not get funded!

Also you do not want the reviewers to think that you are proposing something that has been done before

Important to cite past work and tell how your proposed work is different than it.

There will always be someone older on the review panel who will bring up this issue if you are not careful

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Objective For Today

Background on electronic information Discuss basic strategies for literature

searches Electronic media and how it is indexed

Databases do not usually search articles – they search indexes.

In order to have an effective search you need to know how the data base is indexed

If you want your papers to be noticed you need to make sure they are written to facilitate indexing

General search techniques and tips

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Background Short History of E-Information

First e-journal in chem: Journal of Biological Chemistry, 1995

Barriers to this new model in 1995 included:

No backfiles, limited content

Bandwidth not up to speed

Loading graphics took a long, long time

Limited number of journals and publishers involved

Pricing models took time to develop

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Short History of E-Information

Barriers finally crumbled when:

Bandwidth improved

High speed transmission

Backfiles online

Indexing linked directly to full text

Citation linking within articles

Tools such as SFX, Crossref, DOI made everything work together more smoothly

Pricing models began to favor “e” over print

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UIUC Chemistry Journal Use

1988, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 Use Study Results by Type of Use

  1988 1993 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

Library use of Print Journals 31,501 46,984 42,490 44,650 31,234 20,498 6,471 618

                 

E-Journal Use 0 0 0 0 64,590 323,146 674,110 848,670

                 

Total use 31,703 46,984 42,490 44,650 95,824 343,644 680,464 849,288

UIUC Chemistry Library Journal Use (6 month tallies)

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Shift To Electronic Information Has Created Tension Between Librarians and Scientists

Over Fees

Scientists Highest impact factor journal possible

Old Expensive journals Proposal reviewers look at where articles have

been published Librarians like a free model

US government already paid for research, why pay again to access the results

Welcome foundation requiring grantees to publish in a free model

Free model proposed for NIH publications – did not pass due to complaints from non-profits such as the american chemical society

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How Has Electronic Publishing Changed Scholarly Literature?`

Key change: now use search engines Old method of searching

Find papers by searching subject headings in chemical abstracts

Broad brush categories e.g catalysis – hundreds of papers/mo

Look up all references in those papers Do cited reference search to look up people who also

cite similar references New method: use electronic database to search

for targeted information Avoids broad categories (good and bad) Still useful to look up references (web copies of papers),

do cited reference search (web of science or scifinder)

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Search Engines Are Not People

Search engines use algorithms to find information The cannot understand the scientific content

or importance of an article They can only look for words, phrases,

possibly chemical structures Most search engines are indexed by index

terms and author supplied titles, keywords, references and possibly abstracts

Expect that if you only use one search engine and one set of keywords you will miss things

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Examples Of Why Indexing Is Important

How can I find this article?

Possible search terms

Polyelectrolyte brushes

METAC Poly 2-(meth

acryloyloxy) ethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride

The structure of the polymer

Reference found

Reference not found

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Conclusions

Search engines usually do not look through the body of a scientific article

Instead they look through the title, abstract, keywords and index terms Index terms are usually added by hand

If you want your articles to be found and cited you need to provide the right keywords in the title/abstract so someone can find it Often titles have colons; search engines

only search up to the colon.

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Tips On Making Your Articles Easy To Find

Be sure to include the chemical name of the most important substances in your title/abstract

Look at the keywords in similar articles and be sure you include them in your abstract

Be sure to include the CAS number of every compound in your abstract/paper

Consider adding the IUPAC International Chemical Identifier for each compound http://www.iupac.org/inchi/ somewhere in your paper

Royal Society already adopted, ACS resisting Sucrose (InChI = 1/C12H22O11/c13-1-4-

6(16)8(18)9(19)11(21-4)23-12(3-15)10(20)7(17)5(2-14)22-12/h4-11,13-20H,1-3H2/t4-,5-, 6-,7-,8+,9-,10-,11-,12+/m1/s1)

Be sure to mention the application of your work in the abstract, keywords

Cite review articles in your paper (makes it easy to find your article via cited reference search)

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Effective Literature Searching

Four key steps Preparing for the search

What information am I looking for? How can I formulate the question so search engine can

answer it Doing the search

Choosing the right initial search terms Choosing the right databases Updating the search terms when you see the results

returned by the databases Be sure to do cited reference searches

Analyzing the results What should I learn from the papers?

Reporting the results Previous literature section of the proposal

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Example: Something Masel Is Working On Now

Polyelectrolyte brushes and related structures as catalyst inks (i.e. polymer supports) for fuel cells

What search terms do I use to find previous literature? Polyelectrolyte brush & fuel cell (no hits) Polyelectrolyte brush (409 references) Polyelectrolyte & brush (609 references)

Several mention nanoparticles Polyelectrolyte & brush & Nanoparticle (50

references – several on target). Am I done?

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At This point I have missed most of the previous literature

Fuel Cell & Nafion – 3986 references Fuel cell & acrylic acid 932

references Fuel cell & styrene sulfonate (300

references)

Am I done?

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Not done yet!!

Only looked at polyelectrolyte’s Also need to search other terms

Catalyst inks for fuel cells

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Key Conclusions

Start with pretty generic search terms Refine terms to find what you want

Do this several times with different key words It is too easy to miss things if you only start with

one group of key words Missing a body of literature guarantees you will

not be funded.

It is better to have more references than fewer

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Effective Literature Searching

Four key steps Preparing for the search

What information am I looking for? How can I formulate the question so search engine can

answer it Doing the search

Choosing the right initial search terms Choosing the right databases Updating the search terms when you see the results

returned by the databases Be sure to do cited reference searches Look in journals

Analyzing the results What should I learn from the papers?

Reporting the results Previous literature section of the proposal

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I find It Is Important To Prepare For The Search

Make a list of keywords before you start

Make sure you cover everything on your list

People tend to stop when they find the first 20-50 interesting references

Having a list keeps me going so I can find the complete literature.

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So Far Only Key Word Searches- Also Need To Do Author

Searches Many reviewers expect you to cite their

papers. You can do it if you know the review committee (ala NIH)

Author searches are much more effective than keyword searches The search engines do not have to add index

terms I usually find people who are working in

an area and then do author searches I find that I find many more articles this way

instead of using key word and structure searches

Can save search with your competitors names so you always get them

This also gives you ideas for key words

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Cited Reference Searches Much More Effective Than Key Word

SearchesCited reference searches are searches

where you find papers who cited a key paper Indexing cited references can be done

automatically since the author has provided the references in a standard format

Search engine does not have to manually add key words

Not dependent on authors choosing the same key words as you

Much quicker and more effective than key word searches

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Cited Reference Search

Find Papers By Leaders In An Area Find Who Cites those papers Repeat for review articles

Example Masel’s formic acid fuel cell paper from

2002 Denmark’s 2003 paper in chemical

reviews Sharpless’s 1995 angewatte paper

Caution Search Engines Miss Things

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Comparison of SciFinder Scholar and Web of Science Coverage, Whitley, Katherine M.  2002.  Analysis of SciFinder Scholar and Web of Science Citation

Searches. J Am Soc Info Technol  53(14): 1210-1215. , doi: 10.1002/asi.10192

Total Citations

Scifinder Citations

Web of Science Cites

Cites in Scifinder but not WOS

Cites in WOS but not Scifinder

3894 3234 2913 981 661

83% 75% 25% 17%

Duplication analysis, haphazard sample of U.S. academic chemistry researchers. (The table shows results for 2-3 researchers in each of seven chemistry subject areas; the chart below shows just the totals / averages of the seven subjects.)

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Conclusion

Cited reference searches are one of the fastest way to find literature in an area.

Find review articles or key papers by well known people

Look at the references Look at people who cite them

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Summary

You need a good literature review to get funded Random use of search engines usually misses

key literature so you need a strategy Plan and then execute Be sure to do author and cited reference searches

Strategy should consider indexing – requires a different strategy for

Papers in the last 6 months (usually only cited reference searches)

Papers since 2001 – usually found in common search engines by many key words, structures

Papers before 2001 – only key word and cited reference searches effective.

Cited reference searches are particularly effective since the indexing terms are provided by the authors in a consistent way