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Supporting Developing Country Researchers in Publishing Their Work
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Supporting Developing Country Researchers in Publishing Their Work
By Bernard Appiah, 16 May 2012
By Barbara Gastel, 14 May 2012
By Barbara Gastel, 13 May 2012
By Bernard Appiah, 08 May 2012
By Barbara Gastel, 07 May 2012
By Barbara Gastel | 18 February 2012
Greetings again. I hope that all is going well.
For those of us who do research or teaching or both, the published literature is an essential resource. Among other things, it can guide us in our research, keep our teaching fresh and current, and help us report our research in suitable context.
In my view, both searching the literature for material on specific topics and browsing in journals can aid in these regards.
Recently a librarian at our university gave a very helpful presentation in the research-methods course that I teach. The students and I appreciated the information that the librarian provided about bibliographic databases. We also appreciated what he taught us about search strategies.
What we learned from the librarian will be very useful in searching the literature.
Such well-focused searching is an important skill. Many of us should take advantage of chances to learn more about literature searching. Special thanks to all the librarians who provide such instruction.
But such searching isn’t everything. Something else that is helpful is to browse through journals in one’s field or look at their tables of contents.
Doing so helps one to obtain or maintain broad knowledge of one’s field. It also can alert one to useful reading that one wouldn’t have known to look for. Just in the past few weeks, browsing has led me to several articles useful in my work.
Searching is important. But browsing is valuable too. I recommend doing both.
Wishing you a good week— Barbara
Posted by Asahngwa Constantine at 19 February 2012 09:22 AM
Dear Barbara,
Thanks very much for the information. Please if you come across a resource on different search strategies for data basis and scientific literature, please ventilate it to us. I am sure there are many junior researchers like myself who lack skills in literature search.
Thanks in advance
Posted by Ruwan Gamage at 22 February 2012 04:28 AM
Different databases can employ different search strategies. However, one short-cut would be to learn about the search strategies used in the indexing source that you often source. For example, those who use an index like 'Scopus' should study the help documents provided there. However, many of those who are coming from developing countries do not have access to such paid resources. In that context, best thing would be to use Google scholar; again an index to scholarly/near scholarly resources on Web.
Simple strategies like use of quotation marks ("..") to demarcate phrases, + and - for inclusion and ommission of search terms, and 'filetype:pdf' to download pdf documents only are worthwhile to mention here.
Eg:
1. "inter cultural communication"
2. communication +print -electronic
3. "print advertising" filetype:pdf
As Barbara stated, browsing contents pages would be very much helpful. For that, you can identify a few good journals in your field of study. You can even subscribe (free) to a RSS feed of contents pages of these journals.
Posted by Bolanle Aishat Akinwande at 20 February 2012 11:39 AM
Thank you Barbara for this valuable tip. Many young scientists like mine are not informed of the importance of literature search. Several publications for this year are in the databases which researchers found impossible to access. I just got training on how to access electronic library last week, courtesy of AWARD program. I realized it is possible to have access to current information effortlessly. Many scientists are not informed that having references within the last five years enhances acceptance of manuscript.
It would be appreciated if you could provide more information or sharing of training materials on how to access electronic library.
Thank you.
Posted by Barbara Gastel at 22 February 2012 05:13 AM
All,
Thank you for the good discussion. I'm glad there's interest in receiving more information on literature searching. And I appreciate the suggestions from Ruwan.
In a future post, I hope to note highlights of the literature-searching presentation I mentioned. Also, I'll look for some good, readily accessible materials on basics of literature searching.
Meanwhile, I hope that librarians and others in the AuthorAID community will continue to share with the rest of us their suggestions in these regards. Please provide your literature-searching advice and mention good sources of literature-searching guidance. Feel free to do so either by posting a comment or by contacting me through AuthorAID.
Again, thank you. Until later,
Barbara
Searching and Browsing: Both Are Valuable
Posted by Ibrahim Abubakar Anka 1 at 19 February 2012 05:28 AM
Thank you Prof. Barbara for sharing this information.
Please could you outline some of the "search strategies" that can aid a "well-focused searching" and issues on "bibliographic databases" that the librarian in your university discussed?
Ibrahim Abubakar Anka