BIOL 431: Cellular Basis of Adaptation

Step 1

• Define the scope of your project.  Do you need to narrow your topic from a broad, general one?  If so, some things to consider:
  • How established is the research field?  If it is a well-studied field, there will be plenty of literature in a wide variety of formats.  If it is a new topic or idea, there may be very little published about it.
  • Do you want to focus on a particular location, time period, technology, theory, person, group, project, or event? 
  • What do you already know about the topic?  What do you need to investigate?
• Start a list of keywords to use.  Terminology can change, so this list will need updating as you search.
• Do background reading to find out more about your topic: check the reference ebook collections like Knovel.
• Try a general search in Omni to find out the range of books and ebooks published.

Step 2

• Try an initial, very general search in Web of Science or Pubmed for your topic. 
  • Filter by publication year - how long it the publishing history for this field?  Are there any publication trends?
  • Filter by controlled vocabulary  to see the categories for this topic - this is where you can start narrowing your topic, and gain more keywords/synonyms.
  • Filter by document type, e.g., to see if any review papers about your topic exist.
• Start a list of key researchers, groups, agencies and labs.
• Start a timeline, if appropriate.

Step 3

• Search specialized databases in depth for journal articles, technical reports, theses, etc.
• Web of Science, Pubmed, OMIM (within Pubmed)
  • Make use of these databases’ features, such as “cite by”, sorting, document type, and controlled vocabulary.
• Make a list of the databases you have searched, and the keywords you used for each.
• Check the reliability of your sources if unsure (e.g. Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory).

Ongoing

• Use a method to manage your citations and use it throughout the search process, e.g. Zotero, MS Word, Endnote