Reviewing the information on a topic means exploring sources, finding relevant articles, books and reports, reading them, and then organizing the issues with and appraoches to your topic.
You start by searching appropriate databases including GoogleScholar (Google will be much too broad). You use databases focused on your discipline to save time and to be sure you get at the majority of the information. Check the list of selected databases on this page.
Take an important paper on your topic and use Web of Science to find newer papers that cite that paper. You can start with a paper that your mentor gave you. This can help you to find more recent work on similar themes. You can also do this in GoogleScholar, but the results may not be as comprehensive.
Select a recent paper by your mentor and use Web of Science to link to all papers referenced by that paper.
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Tracking Who Cited a Paper:
- Go to Web of Science.
- Click on the tab at the top of the screen: Cited Reference Search.
- Fill in the boxes (Author, Journal TItle and Year) and click on the Search Button.
- From the list of hits, check the box with the article you want to use. (Hint: There may be more than one hit for your article, so select them all.)
- Click on FInish Search. This will give you a list of all of the articles citing your original article.
- Email, download or browse the list.
Finding What Articles a Paper Cited:
- Go to Web of Science.
- Using the paper you have selected, type in the author's last name, date of the article and any other information you have.
- Click on the Search Button.
- Click on the title you want from the list of hits.
- Look closely for References: and click on the number.
- Email, download or browse the list or references. You can also click on any of them for more information.
Evaluating any information resources is essential.
• Who is the author?
• Who published it?
• Who is the audience?
• When was it published or last updated?
• Is it accurate? This can revolve around currency, authority of the author, and breadth of coverage.
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Figuring out if information is peer-reviewed takes some thought. While there are always exceptions, most peer reviewed articles have certain characteristics. Here are a few things to look for to help you evaluate the articles you find:
* Where did you find the article? It can be difficult to find peer reviewed materials using regular web search engines like Google. You're more likely to find peer reviewed materials searching in the library's subscription databases .
* Where was it published? In something with a title like "Journal of..." or in something more familiar, like USA Today or The Economist? Familar, "popular" magazines and newspapers are not peer-reviewed.
* What does it look like? While the format for peer reviewed articles varies somewhat in different disciplines, peer reviewed articles will almost always have many, many citations used throughout the article, with a long list of the sources cited at the end. Articles published in science and social science fields will normally have specific, labelled sections like an abstract, an introduction, the methodology used, the results discovered, and a discussion and/or conclusion section.
* Who wrote it? Peer reviewed articles are frequently written collaboratively, meaning they have more than one author. Also, you should be able to find the authors' affiliation somewhere on the article, meaning the university or research institute where they work. If there's no author given at all, it's definitely not peer reviewed.
If you ever have questions about whether or not an article has been peer reviewed, you can always ask your instructor or a librarian for help.
