CHBE Orientation Program

1
CHBE Orientation Program

• Searching the Literature

2
Background

• A literature search in the first step in any
  research program
• Recall 551 exam
• You need to know
• What has been done before
• What techniques have been used
• Who are the leaders
• What are the open questions
• All of you are now assigned to research groups
• No better time than the present to start your
  literature search
• By April you will need to present a seminar on
  your research topic (requires literature search)

3
Objective For Today

• Discuss basic strategies for literature searches
• Details on Scifinder and web of science,
  Engineering Village

4
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

5
Let me get onto Scifinder to Do A Search

• http//scifinder.cas.org
• Need a login information is at
  http//www.library.illinois.edu/chx/sfchanges.html

6
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
• You need to formulate your search so the search
  engine can find it

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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
8
Example Something Masel Worked On A Few Years
Ago

• 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 polyelectrolytes
• 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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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

• 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

14
Cited Reference Searches Much More Effective Than
Key Word Searches

• Cited 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
• Masels formic acid fuel cell paper from 2002
• Kenis work on Laminar Flow reactors

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Caution Search Engines Miss Things
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
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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Search Engines Of Interest
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Scifinder Scholar

• Software from Chem Abstracts
• UIUC has a site license
• Available on the web
• http//scifinder.cas.org
• Need a login information is at
  http//www.library.illinois.edu/chx/sfchanges.html
  
• Need Illinois domain to use
• Need VPN if you want to use this from home
• VPN downloadable from http//www.cites.uiuc.edu/vp
  n/index.html

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Key Limitations Of Scifinder

• Librarians/linguists not chemists do most
  indexing
• Indexing by CAS number not IUPAC structure
• Misses articles not published in chemical
  journals
• e.g. IEEE sensors, MRI imaging
• Patent coverage spotty
• Logical searches particularly weak
• You can and two searches on your computer, but
  only after you download them 100 references at a
  time
• Weird license limitations

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License Limitations For Scifinder

• Download at most 100 references at a time, 5000
  per session
• Requires downloads to do logical (And/or)
  searching
• Allowed to only keep 5000 search results at a
  time in format written by scifinder
• No limitation on references imported to endnote
  or refworks provided search results deleted from
  your computer
• No commercial/consulting use

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Examples

• Scifinder
• http//scifinder.cas.org
• Web Of Science
• http//www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/get.php?instid258
  127
• Engineering Village
• http//www.engineeringvillage.com
• Scopus
• http//www.scopus.com
• Google

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Summary

• You need a good literature review for orals
• Start now
• 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