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Top page Greenhouses literature review (5,804)

How to do a Literature Review[edit | edit source]

Lit. reviews in the Applied Sustainability Group[edit | edit source]

  • Create Lit. Review page for your topic.
  • Keep records of all your searches.(e.g. Google Scholar for "Solar energy").
  • Make a Citation List for all the articles you find relevant to your topic. Arrange in chronological order.
  • Unless you have a particular target journal citations should be arranged like this: Author, "Title", Journal, Vol(No), page range, year.
  • Hyperlink your citation to the available electronic file or at least the abstract.Ideally link to the DOI and include a link to an open access version if it exists.

For example:

Joshua Pearce and Christopher Uhl, "Getting It Done: Effective Sustainable Policy Implementation at the University Level" Planning for Higher Education, 31(3), 53-61, 2003.

Why?[edit | edit source]

  • Different journals have different requirements for the formats of citations. However, it makes it much easier to write your own articles in the future if you have all the possible information they could want in your citation list.
  • Ideally store all articles electronically in a folder. Print, photocopy, or save pdfs of all relevant articles. If we do not have access here order through interlibrary loan.
  • Arrange in chronological order by grouping into research group or concept.

Web search[edit | edit source]

  • Read the intro tutorials on web searching here: Search Lores
  • Use Fravia's search engines here Fravia+ search
  • Install a google toolbar on your web-browser if you don't already have one
    • Set it up with the highlight button – faster than using an internal document search
  • After finding webpages, ppt, pdf files make sure to keep paste full links in your Citation List
  • For datasets from a computational knowledge engine try WolframAlpha

Library and Database Searches[edit | edit source]

Patents[edit | edit source]

For example:
"gallium indium nitride" and ccl/136/$
"indium gallium nitride" and ccl/136/$
GaInN and ccl/136/$
InGaN and ccl/136/$

Literature Tree[edit | edit source]

  • Try to find a recent review article on the subject and then follow the reference list backwards
  • For basic concepts use the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia that anyone can edit - (This is what the internet is supposed to be doing for humanity.) Consider adding to the world's knowledge on a subject we are exploring (e.g. protocrystalline)
    • Contact authors for reprints and ask for recent work
    • Look up authors/research groups online for electronic access.

Software Tools[edit | edit source]

Queen's Proxy[edit | edit source]

If you are off-campus, you can access Queen's resources (such as journal articles in databases which Queen's has subscribed to) by going to proxy.queensu.ca, logging in with your NetID and password, and then entering the site in the URL box. For most websites, this has the same effect as if you are accessing it from a campus computer.

Zotero[edit | edit source]

ZOTERO is a bibliography management plug-in for Firefox. It allows auto-adding bibliographic information; notes to be added on each reference; importing and exporting bibliography databases.

Backing Up[edit | edit source]

Zotero has been known to replace the computer-side database (ie the one you were updating and adding to) with the web-server database (the old one), through auto-sync. Turn this feature off to prevent loss of data; do remember to sync to the server (click the green circle icon) if you are moving to another computer and want access to the complete database; but back up your data before you sync.

  1. To backup: Click the Gear icon.
  2. Select Export Library
  3. Select Zotero RDF and click both files and notes options (this appears to be a complete backup; untested, if you test it (on a non-synching home computer) change this wiki!)
  4. Give it a logical filename - it would be a good idea to use a time-date format to avoid re-importing the wrong one
  5. To reimport: Click the Gear icon
  6. Select Import...
  7. Select the file you backed everything up to.

Creating Bibliographies[edit | edit source]

When exporting bibliographic information, Zotero will export the Author (or editor) name as it is formatted inside Zotero. It has the option to have Full Name or Last,First.

  1. To switch between formats: Select the document you would like to change the format of (from your reference list in Zotero)
  2. To switch to Full Name format: Click the white rectangle button beside the Author entry
  3. To switch to Last,First: Click the two smaller white rectangles

You can export your bibliographic data in any supported reference format (if you are submitting to a journal that does not use one of the Zotero default formats get it here or make your own here:

  1. Select the items you want from your bibliography list
  2. Right click on them
  3. Select "create bibliography from selected items", where you will then be prompted for a reference format and an output method (clipboard, html file, etc). Use clipboard if you want to directly paste the information into a document.

Adding References to Zotero[edit | edit source]

Importing automatically: the most common glitches are Authors; sometimes they are merged into one entry, the order is wrong, authors are left off, etc. Check your authors as you import to avoid delays when you submit papers

References can be added automatically by clicking the extra icon in the address bar, which changes based on the type of page you are looking at.

Not recommended to use this method; seems to cause problems with retrieving complete/correct information: The latest version of ZOTERO can automatically fill in all it's reference data if you give it an ISBN or a DOI:

  1. Click the "Add Item by Identifier" feature (little wand icon) [if you dont see this icon, upgrade Zotero to the latest version].

References can be added manually. Click the Green +.

Pages in category "Queens Applied Sustainability Group Literature Reviews"

The following 36 pages are in this category, out of 36 total.

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