Contents 1 Literature Review 2 Searching 2.1 Web search 2.2 Library and Database Searches 2.3 Patents 2.4 Literature Tree

[edit] Literature Review

• Keep records of all your searches. Maintain a wiki page in your user space with a complete Citation List for all the articles you find relevant to your topic. Arrange in alphabetical order. For relevant topics consider posting your lit. review as a separate page.

• 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.

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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.

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• 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 seperate file. 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 research group or concept.

[edit] Searching

[edit] Web search

• 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

[edit] Library and Database Searches

• Queen's Main Library Page
• Googles Scholar page will search peer reviewed and conf. proceedings
• Queen’s Databases for science and engineering
  • Science Direct
  • EBSCO
  • Elsevier http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journals
  • Material Research Society Symposium Proceedings Database http://www.mrs.org/publications/
  • American Institute of Physics http://scitation.aip.org/
  • Compendex - Engineering Village
  • IEEE Explore also see IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conf. proceedings (my office on CD)
  • INSPEC - Comprehensive coverage of physics, electronics, computing, control engineering and information technology. Indexes technical and scientific journals, and conference proceedings.
  • SCIFINDER SCHOLAR - (Chemical Abstracts)

[edit] Patents

• Google patents
• ESPACENET - 60 million patent documents from 70+ countries (including CA and US), 1800s-to present
  • Combine keywords with ECLA and IPC codes.
• USPTO Patent Databases - 8 million US patents, 1790 to present
  • Combine keywords with USPC class #. See below:
  • Advanced Search:

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

[edit] Literature Tree

• 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.