Introduction to Scholarly Communication

Download citations to citation management software. 

A good literature review finds relevant academic literature and places it in a context that supports future research.  In other words, what background does the audience need to know in order to understand the innovation that you are presenting in your thesis or article?

Reed, L. (1998). Performing a Literature Review. 1998 Frontiers in Engineering Conference. IEEE: Tempe, AZ. Available online.

• Choosing "Fulltext" options generally limits to articles within the past 30 years
  • Historical articles sometimes needed
  • Use EI Engineering Village or other abstract database for historical literature
• Develop a Search strategy
  • Keywords - use to focus search on your topic
  • Subject Descriptors - match your keywords to these to maximize efficient searching
• Download citations to citation management software to track where you have been

• Google type search interface with facets to narrow search. 
• Provides in-depth, efficient, subject specific searching.
• Includes academic, scholarly journals, some of which Purdue does not subscribe to.
• Results are highly targeted to discipline.
• A good place to continue a search after you have figured out useful keywords.
• A good place to go when you want a quick, accurate search.
• Retrieve anything we don't own by clicking on the FInd It@Purdue Libraries button.