Reading lesson: Collecting literature
Within the broader scope of literature management, this lesson focuses on collecting literature.
Methods of literature research
How to explore the relevant literature?
Preparations for collecting literature
Keywords and databases
The following list is a step-by-step guide to the process of writing a thesis or any other academic work. Researching the literature is an important step in this process, and this lesson is designed to help with this.
- Defining the selected subject, gathering general information
- Defining the research objective, and preparing an outline and a research plan
- Collecting the necessary literature
- Processing the literature collected
- Overviewing and choosing applicable research methods and methods of analysis
- Preparing the written work
- Finalizing formatting, references, and bibliography
- Submitting the academic work in the required format (i.e., printed and/or electronic)
Methods of literature research
As a starting point, some of the possible methods of literature research are examined here.
When exploring a topic, readers can rely either on their prior knowledge or the guidance of an expert in the field. However, this is usually just the first step, and more in-depth research requires the use of other methods. The following three methods, in particular, are all useful in terms of exploring literature.
Systematic literature research involves using general or specialized bibliographies as tools. General bibliographies* are national bibliographies that provide a list of the works produced in a given country, with the documents grouped by subject. In contrast, specialised bibliographies* provide a comprehensive list of publications in a particular discipline or on a specific subject.
To explore articles published in a journal, it may be useful to rely on the cumulative table of contents of the particular journal, which is an alphabetical index of all the articles published in the journal in a given volume or volumes.
If someone already has access to certain relevant and useful documents, the bibliographies in those documents can be of great help in carrying on with research, as they contain the titles of other relevant documents. Of course, those documents will only be of any real use if they are actually accessible. In essence, this method of literature research is called the snowball method because it involves starting out with a single resource that “snowballs into” a multitude of resources, all of which may then be consulted.
Although some people only examine theses written by others for their formal requirements, we are approaching them now for their content. The content of previous theses can be interesting in at least two ways.
1. Finding a thesis on a topic that overlaps to a large extent with the proposed topic of the future thesis may even lead you to choose another topic to write about, knowing that the particular topic has already been covered by someone else. Of course, when making that decision, it is worth considering where the previous thesis was written, what its evaluation reflects in terms of its quality, whether it has been published, and whether the author has continued to publish other works on the subject. All of these should be factored into any conclusions (for instance, as to whether the topic can or cannot be explored further or as to whether the topic could be covered in a better way).
2. When finding a thesis on a topic which has some points in common with the proposed topic of the prospective thesis, the thesis can actually be cited, or its bibliography may be used to help generate ideas by relying on the snowball method.
Preparations for collecting literature
Becoming aware of how to do literature research is just one part of the preparation phase of the research process, and in order to be able to use any literature research methods at all, it is essential to define the specific aim of research and to draft a research outline.
These two steps allow the writer to specify two things: the essential search terms to be used in the exploration of relevant literature as well as the search interfaces that are expected to yield the highest number of search results.
Although digital access to documents makes it easier to do searches, in order to get the most relevant results, search subjects have to be as specific as possible. At the same time, certain subjects (e.g., topics or events covered in newspapers that are significant primarily in terms of local history) may have little or no coverage in digital documents. However, the process described below may be useful even in such special cases, as it may help gather a wealth of background information.
Choosing the right search platform
In literature research, anything that can be searched, for any purpose, may be regarded as a search platform. Therefore, printed bibliographies and online databases should both be seen as search platforms. However, the following guidelines focus specifically on how to choose and use online databases.
Before starting to search in an online database, it is important to become aware of the profile of the given database to be able to make an informed decision as to whether it is worth using it at all.
This entails finding out the following:
- What discipline(s) does it provide content on?
- Does it contain bibliographic data and/or full texts?
- Is it a database of books or journal articles, or both?
- Is it an open-access or a restricted-access database? If access is restricted, how is access possible (e.g., through an institution)?
There are several ways to find information about the content of a database.
- Information in the lessons about international databases.
- Information in the thematic list of databases available at the University of Szeged.
- Information available in the Help section of the specific database.
Many databases may be accessed through common search engines, which are capable of querying several databases at the same time.
Such a combined search interface is for example the Summon Discovery. In addition, there are also platforms that organise their own content into multiple sub-databases, allowing for independent searching, but also ensuring that all content can be searched together.
Systems of this kind include Hungaricana and Contenta (which are specific to Hungary) as well as international systems such as the Internet Archive.
Specifying search terms
Before performing a search, it is worth learning about the various search options offered by the database or the unified search engine used, with such options usually explained in the Help section available to users.
It is relatively easy to find resources by author and / or title, because when the right name and / or title are entered in the appropriate search fields, the search engine points to the required document straight away.
However, when performing searches on a specific subject, a certain amount of preparation is required to get relevant search results. For such queries, databases (including library catalogues) use subject headings or keywords to describe the content of a work, and searching them helps to find documents on a topic. In library catalogues and databases subjects are usually tagged with both broad terms and terms with a narrow meaning, allowing multifaceted search.
What should be done?
- List all the keywords, both narrow and broad, that are related to the topic researched.
- If a search term has synonyms, those should be added to the list as well.
- Geographical names and dates (e.g., 20th century, 1939–1945) can also be used in searches.
- If foreign-language sources may be needed, then the foreign-language equivalents of keywords should also be included.
- Every search term should be used with correct spelling.
- Keywords can be combined with each other.
- Check what additional keywords and subject headings a match has received, and if it looks good, add it to the list.
Recap
Databases offer several options to help users perform searches. These include the following:
- Lists of search results can be narrowed down based on multiple criteria (e.g., full-text availability), with the added option of combining different criteria for filtering.
- The number of search results can be increased through truncation – for example, running a search on “antiqu*” will produce a list of works containing the subject headings “antiquity”, “antiquities”, and “antique”; or searching for “medic*” will yield works containing the subject headings “medical”, “medicine”, “medicinal”, and “medicament”. This, however, also means that truncation should be used with caution, as it may result in an excessively large number of search results, which may include irrelevant items as well.
- When several search terms are used in conjunction, the maximum distance between the search terms can be specified among search results.
- Databases will usually search for term in „quotation marks” exactly as it is written.
- Appropriate search terms may also be selected from indexes of subject headings or keywords, which appear in drop-down lists under search bars (i.e., autocomplete function*).
Autocomplete
The database automatically displays search term options.
Taking the time to accurately specify search terms and to get familiar with databases is worth the effort, because the time spent on the research will pay off.
Note-taking methods and accessing literature
Earlier literature on producing scientific works tended to deal with the importance of handwritten annotation, which was understood to be a method of making handwritten notes about the works read by the researcher. By now, note-taking on paper has diminished in significance, as the necessary information is either recorded directly in a digital format, or managed digitally even if it was originally recorded in handwriting. Accordingly, methods for the storage and retrieval of handwritten annotations are not discussed here. Nonetheless, some general note-taking tips are presented, due to the fact that may be useful in digital note-taking as well.
As the quality of the notes taken can either help or hinder research, once an important document has been found and becomes accessible, attention should be paid to the following when it is actually read.
- Bibliographic data of the works read should always be recorded in detail, as this information will be needed for citing and compiling the bibliography.
- If a document is available online, notes should include the URL of the relevant site as well as the date the document was accessed.
- It is also useful to make a note of where to find relevant printed works (e.g., by noting the name of the library that holds them), as they might need to be consulted again in a later stage of research.
- Word-for-word quotations should be clearly marked with quotation marks, with exact page numbers also recorded. Page numbers should also be recorded for paraphrases to make them easy to find again if necessary.
- Try to take active notes, rather than passive ones, i.e. add your own thoughts, as this will make it easier to compile the final piece of writing. Clearly distinguish which are your own individual thoughts.
- If an outline is already available, it is a good idea to attach notes to each point in the outline, even in separate documents.
- If in-text figures, images, etc., are to be included in the work, or if appendices are to be added, identify them consistently and record their sources. A separate document may be a good solution.
Reference management systems, to be discussed later, can be of great help in collecting, storing, and using bibliographic data and the necessary documents (e.g., text or image files).
How do libraries help their users to access literature?
Whatever the method used for literature research, the most important issue in connection with any titles found and deemed to be relevant is that of access. Accordingly, what follows is a brief overview of how to access documents.
The amount of electronically accessible documents is increasing rapidly in line with the fact that electronic documents are the most practical type of documents in terms of doing research and studying the literature. The two main types of database that provide access to such documents are book databases and article databases. While descriptions of e-books and information on their availability can be found in library catalogues, searching for articles is typically done in dedicated databases or by using combined search engines such as the one provided as part of the above-mentioned Summon service.
The SZTE Klebelsberg Library also provides remote access to its electronic content to users affiliated with the University and registered with the Library.
Works not available electronically usually have to be obtained in print. Finding out whether a particular work of this kind is part of a library collection and whether it can be accessed (i.e., whether it can actually be borrowed or not) is done by consulting the library catalogue. Searching in the catalogue of the Library and finding printed documents is something that has already been discussed in previous lessons.
When it comes to documents that students are not allowed to borrow (i.e., books for local use only, or to be borrowed by teachers only), making copies (photos) is an option.
If a document is not available in any form in a local library, users have access to interlibrary loan services. Such services may include location information, copies, and the actual lending of books. The rules and fees that apply to interlibrary loans may vary from library to library.
Finding and reading information contained in theses can be quite challenging. This is primarily due to restrictions with regard to electronically accessing such documents and also to copyright issues. However, at many universities now, it is not only electronically submitted theses that are digitally preserved and digitally accessible but also theses that had been submitted in print, with printed materials increasingly being digitized as part of various projects. Nonetheless, strict limitations may apply to any such services.
The SZTE Klebelsberg Library provides public access to the metadata of digitized versions of theses written by persons affiliated with the University or its legal predecessors (i.e., information as to the title of the works and as to where, when, and by whom they were written and submitted). This is done within the framework provided by the Contenta repositories. However, full-text access is limited to a few computers located at the Library, with no options for downloading, sharing, or forwarding any such documents. In addition, theses may not be copied in any form.
This lesson was intended to provide an overview of literature research methods and information on how to collect literature, with particular regard to choosing search platforms, listing keywords, and recording information.
By way of summary, the infographic below illustrates the process of collecting and processing literature for research purposes.
