Literature Search

"Going a literature search" presents a general procedure to hit the relevante referenche, though it mainly focuses on the english language resources and sometimes outdated, it provides certain useful websites to begin with.



In the information age, internet should be considered as a gateway to identify and locate the literature. I do believe that any research should begin with a consult of a general and introductory book which presentes the most influencial work of the specific area and subject, as well as get familiar with the terms which should be used in searching the literature.



1. encyclopaedia, maybe nowadays most popular source is that open source wikipedia.

2. prepare terms to look for

3. book database : amazon and book google

4. abstract and index databases for journals : scholar google and other academic journal databases

5. find core texte by using citation index: ISI (need to have the name of the author or title of the article)

6. form the lists of literature and access possibility (online fulltexte or library photocopy)

7. List of authors, research centers, institutions, government agencies, etc.

8. Other less reliable sources such as newspaper, magazines, forum discussion.



The book is basically useless for me, as when a research project is so specific, the literature and data search, the evaluation of the searching results is by itself a serious work to carry on and could result in a paper to share with the colleagues who have the similar interests.