Scientific information sources 2016

bibliotecas UA | 2016bibliotecas UA | 2016
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION
SOURCES

Contents
Scientific articles
Conference papers
Scientific books
OTHER TYPES OF INFORMATION
Master and PhD thesis
INFORMATION SOURCES
Scientific articles databases
Digital repositories
Aggregators
LITERATURE REVIEW

1.
What sources should I use for
researching scientific information on
the Web?

2.
How to select the appropriate
sources?

“ To explore the full potential
of Web search tools, it is
essential to know how the
information is collected,
described and structured

“ Critical understanding of the science
communication and formal publication
Key competencies for academic and
lifelong learning

What is scientific information?
What distinguishes it from other information?
▪ Certified through peer
review
▪ Published in scientific
journals
OTHER TYPES OF INFORMATION
▪ No peer review
▪ Not published in scientific journals

What is peer review?
▪ It is the process used in the publication of articles in scientific
journals
▪ Consists of submitting the scientific work to the evaluation of one or
more specialists in the area
▪ This process certifies the quality of the articles published in a
scientific journal

Scientific
information
Articles
Papers
Books

WHAT IS A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
▪ A scientific paper is written by scientists
▪ Has peer review
▪ Is the primary way for the formal communication of science
▪ Allows researchers to communicate to peers the results of an
investigation
▪ Is published in journals with knowledge certification mechanisms
Scientific articles

ELEMENTS TO COMPOSE A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
 Abstract
Brief summary of the article where its objective is included,
methodology used to solve the problem and the results achieved
▪ Introduction
It situates the reader in the context of the researched subject, offering a
global vision of the study. It presents the problem of study (what), the
objectives (for what purpose) and the methodology used in the study
(how and where)
Scientific articles

▪ Method
Describes the method used with accurate information, so that the
experiment can be repeated by another person, with the same or
identical results
▪ Results
The author describes what he observes in the experiment. It presents
arguments and results that support their data. May have schemas and
pictures
Scientific articles

▪ Discussion
Interpretation of results. The author highlights all the knowledge acquired,
through the discussion of the results obtained
▪ Conclusion
Response to the hypotheses presented in the introduction and the
objectives of the study. They synthesize the main results
▪ Bibliographic references
Articles or other works consulted and quoted in the article
Scientific articles

TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES
▪ Article
The author describes for the first time the study and the results of a
research paper
▪ Review article
Review articles are critical reviews in which the author organizes,
integrates and evaluates previously published studies
Scientific articles

PAPERS
 Papers are often published in Proceedings and are the result of
communications at conferences organized in scientific institutions
▪ It is usual that the works that appear in the Proceedings have been
previously published
▪ Before being published, the work is usually released as a preprint
Published conference papers

SCIENTIFIC BOOKS
 In many cases are publications with a scientific editor, consisting of
several parts of different authors
 May be the published contents of academic and scientific conferences
Scientific books

Other information
Research results
not published by
traditional way

▪ PhD theses and master’s dissertations
▪ Scientific and technical reports
▪ Preprints
▪ Working papers
▪ Unpublished conference papers
Other information
Research results not published by
traditional way

“In many cases is the best way to
update on certain topics

“ Finding information depends
mainly on the efficient use of
search tools

Information
Sources
Databases
Repositories
Aggregators

Know to better
select
Where to
search?

VERY
IMPORTANT
Scientific
Databases
Aggregators
Repositories
Libraries
catalogues
Theses
Reports
Articles
Scientific books
Scientific books chapters
Theses
Scientific books
Articles
Journals
Dictionaries
Library collections
(books, journals,
scores, CD…)
Scientific articles
Conference papers
Review articles
Scientific books
Scientific books chapters
The practices, means and
mechanisms of scientific
publication are different
according to the areas of
knowledge and research
practices, varying also the
platforms and strategies for
research and information
discovery

▪ Bibliographical collections of scientific articles
▪ Collects journals from different editors and they became a global access
point to the most of published scientific literature
▪ Due to their scope, they are the most appropriate tools for the literature
review on a subject
▪ International bibliography
▪ Quality control of the contents included
▪ Some scientific databases includes article citation counting by article and
other data important for evaluation
Scientific databases
What is it?

MultidisciplinaryThematics
Commercials
(for only one
editor)
Types

MULTIDISCIPLINARY
 SCOPUS
 WoS
 ProQuest
 Academic Search
Complete
THEMATICS
▪ PubMed
▪ Medline
▪ Eric
COMMERCIALS
(for only one editor)
▪ ACM
▪ IEEE
▪ Science Direct
▪ Emerald
Types
More information:
http://www.ua.pt/sbidm/biblioteca/artigos

UA
VPNFree
Login
password
Access

FREE
 PubMed
 ERIC
UA | VPN
 SCOPUS
 WoS
 Academic Search
Complete
 Science Direct
 Emerald
LOGIN
 ProQuest
Access
More information about VPN configuration:
http://www.ua.pt/stic/teletrabalho_vpn

▪ Information systems with scientific and academic contents available
in open access
▪ They include journal articles, conference papers, master's dissertations
and doctoral theses and documents that result from the research
activities of an institution
▪ Usually they are associated with a teaching and / or research institution
Repositories
What is it?

▪ They have the great advantage of including the digital file of the
referenced document, in Open Access
▪ Essential tools for the research and discovery of gray literature: theses,
preprints, reports, conference papers, etc.
▪ Contribute to the increase of the scientific literature in open access,
promoting in the network its visibility
Repositories
Features

RCAAP
RIA OpenAIRE
Repositories
Some examples
More information:
http://www.ua.pt/sbidm/biblioteca/teses

▪ Add multiple databases and other platforms in a single point of search
▪ They are usually appropriate when the goal is to have an overview of
the recent publication of a certain subject
▪ Great advantage of saving time because they are very wide systems
▪ Disadvantage: they don’t include a structured indexing language nor
structured information, because they collect information from sources
with different languages and fields
▪ When the goal is to perform a fine and more specialized research, they
are not adequate
Aggregators
Features

Google
ScholarB-on
Integrated
Search
Aggregators
Some examples
More information:
http://www.ua.pt/sbidm/biblioteca/artigos

▪ Research and collection of literature in an area or subject
▪ Comprehensive analysis of the literature and its synthesis of scientific
production in an area or theme
▪ "State of the art" on a certain theme
▪ It aims to provide context and justification for the investigation to take
place
Literature review
What is it?

▪ Define the subject of the search in keywords
▪ Select and adapt the sources of information
▪ Define the research strategy
▪ Collect and analyze information
Literature review
Essential steps

Some tips for the steps:
“Define the subject of the research in keywords”
and
“Define the research strategy”
Literature review
Tips

DEFINE THE SUBJECT OF THE RESEARCH IN KEYWORDS
 Once the research question has been determined, the subject topics or
associated ideas must be identified
 Select the search terms - the keywords that identify the subject
(relevant or most important words in the research for a subject)
 Define geographical or chronological limits
 Translate to English language the terms for searches in scientific
international databases
Literature review
Tips

▪ HOW TO IDENTIFY THE TERMS?
▪ Controlled vocabulary should be used whenever necessary, which
means the use of controlled subject terms. These terms may be
referred to as subject headings or indexed keywords
▪ Some databases includes thesaurus or subject indexes
▹ ERIC (Education and Psychology)
▹ MeSH – Medical Subject Headings
Literature review
Tips

▪ HOW TO IDENTIFY THE TERMS?
▪ In dictionaries / encyclopedias
▪ Collect subject terms and indexed keywords used in articles related to
the topic / subject, after a generic search in a scientific database or
Google Scholar
Literature review
Tips

▪ BE ALLERT…
▪ Synonyms / alternative terms: ‘young people’ or ‘adolescents’
▪ Singular / Plural: child, children
▪ Abbreviations: UML, Unified Modeling Language; UK, United Kingdom
▪ Language variants
▫ organisation – UK or organization – USA
▫ behavior – UK or behaviour – USA
▫ physiotherapy – UK or physical therapy – USA
Literature review
Tips

▪ BE ALLERT…
▪ Use the (*) truncation symbol
▪ When entering the search term in the singular, it will only retrieve
records that contain the word in this form
▪ The * symbol next to the root of the word retrieves records with possible
different endings:
▫ child* = child; children; childhood
▪ Consult the help pages of the scientific databases to confirm the
truncation symbol
Literature review
Tips

▪ BE ALLERT…
▪ Use the (?) symbol to replace a character, in case of a linguistic variant
▫ Organi?ation = retrieves organization and organisation
▪ Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
▪ Use quotation marks "" for compound terms
▫ “information literacy”
Literature review
Tips

DEFINE THE RESEARCH STRATEGY
▪ EXPLORE THE FUNCTIONALITIES OF THE DATABASES
▪ Search by author
▪ Limit options - allows you to set limits, such as:
▫ Document type – ex: “review articles”
▫ Chronological period
▫ Subject area
Literature review
Tips

▪ Discover information from a selected registry
▪ Analyze the list of bibliographic references
▪ Explore the "related records" option
▪ Check the list of articles that cited the document - "cited by“
Literature review
Tips

▪ Keeping up-to-date - most databases allow you to subscribe to alerts
via email or rss feed from the results of a particular search or
publication
Literature review
Tips

1. BEFORE STARTING INFORMATION RESEARCH, YOU SHOULD:
 Clearly define the subject / terms to be searched for
 Select the type of information to be collected
 Select the information source according to the information type
Literature review
Summary

2. BUILDING THE SEARCH QUERY
 Choose research terms
 Define geographical or chronological limits
 Translate to English language the terms for searches in international
scientific databases
Literature review
Summary

3. WHEN CHOOSING THE RESEARCH TERMS, YOU MUST ALSO
THINK AT:
▹ Synonyms
▹ Plural/singular
▹ Abbreviations
▹ Linguistic variants
Literature review
Summary

Literature review
Summary
Always remember your
purpose for study.
When collecting and
organizing your literature,
ask yourself: How does this
relate to my study? Is it very
important, moderately
important?
What do you want to
search?
▪ Scientific articles
▪ Other articles
▪ Theses and dissertations
▪ …
Where to search?
▪ Database
▪ Repository
▪ Library catalog
▪ …
What subjects to search?
1. What are the subjects in PT
2. Check synonyms
3. Check plural and singular
4. Check abbreviations
5. Translation to EN
6. Verify language variants

Obtaining the article
Steps…
It may take several steps
to get the article!
If the reference you
searched for is important to
your work, do not give up
locating the document. Ask
for help of a Library
Reference Service
technician!
1. Databases – Find the fulltext link (PDF, Fulltext)
2. AtoZ – Verify that the journal is subscribed in electronic form by
the UA and which chronological period is available
3. AtoZ da eLibraryUSA (login/password required) – Verify if the
journal is available in electronic format and which chronological
period is accessible
4. OPAC – Check if the journal exists in printed format in the UA
libraries
5. Google Scholar – Search the article title

Obtaining the article
Steps…
Good luck!6. Google – Search the article title in pdf format (filetype:PDF)
7. Integrated Search – Search the article title
8. Databases – Check the author's affiliation and search in Google
the repository of the institution to which the author belongs. In
the repository, search the author / title of the article
9. Databases – Check the author's contact and send him an e-mail
10. Interlibrary Loan Service – Request to other national or foreign
library a copy of the article

http://www.ua.pt/sbidm/biblioteca
Where to find the
information
sources?
UA LIBRARIES WEB
SITE

Thank you!!
Questions?
sbidm-referencia@ua.pt

Scientific information sources 2016

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