Effective Searching: Part 5 - Making your results work for you... (Generic Web)

Effective Searching 5: Making your results work for you…

1. Effective searching overview: key concepts
2. Broadening your Search
- synonyms, wildcards, truncation tools
3. Narrowing your search
- proximity connectors, phrase searching,
exclusions
4. Constructing your search
- grouping, search history, evaluating your
search
5. Citation Searching
Presentations summary

This short slide deck will provide an overview of your
next steps, once you have constructed an effective
search, to ensure you are kept up to date with the
latest research on your topic.
It forms part 5 of a series covering some of the tools
available to you to construct an effective search.
Part 1-4 covered how to construct an effective
search strategy, and tips on evaluating how
effectively it works.

Effective Searching
Define your
information need
• What types
of resource
do you
need?
• Identify
where to
search.
• Identify
your key
concepts.
Broaden
your search
• Be compre-
hensive.
• Ensure
nothing is
missed un-
necessarily.
• “Cast your
nets wide.”
Narrow your
search
• Be focused.
• Exclude any
‘noise’.
• Ensure you
can use
your reading
time most
efficiently.
• “Use the
right nets.”
Evaluate
your results
• Identify
gaps.
• Assess un-
expected
results.
• Review
search
terms with
new knowl-
edge.
Make your
results work for
you
• Be efficient
with your
time.
• Search
alerts.
• Citation
searching.

We will cover:
(1) Related Results
a) Citation Searching & References
b) Similar publications
c) Quick text-mining tools
d) Related commentary - Altmetrics
(2) Keeping up to date
a) Search & Citation alerts

Let’s start with:
(1) Related Results

Related Results 1: Citation searching & references
When starting your search, in most cases your
results match the specific keywords you enter.
Once you have identified some relevant results,
you may be able to use these to identify
additional articles of interest or relevance.
One key step you can take is reviewing the
reference list of an article you have read, or doing
a citation search to identify citing works.

• Results you find usually sit within a wider scholarly discourse which you
can follow both backwards (references) and forwards (citations) in time
• They may have a positive or negative connection to other literature –
helping you evaluate articles you have found through the work of others,
or through different applications of the ideas or research presented.
• They place your identified reading within the wider academic debate:
– What that author considered relevant.
– How subsequent authors have considered / critiqued / applied / developed
the research presented.

20182016 20172015 2019 2020 2021
Paper
A
Article
B
Article
C
Book1
Article
D
Book
2
Article
G
Article
E
Book4
Article
F
Book
3
Citation SearchingBibliography / Reference List
Found article

• Most academic databases will allow you to view a list of referenced
papers.
• There are also 4 key services available to you, which are useful for
view citing works to an article you have found: Scopus, Web of
Science, Google Scholar and Dimensions.

• You can see how to conduct a citation search for each of these
services in this LibGuide, under Citation Searching
https://durham-uk.libguides.com/research_skills/finding_info

Related Results 2: Similar publications
Once you have identified key articles for your
research, most databases allow you different routes
to then browse further through related publications.
The options will vary between databases, but here
are a few examples…

Related Results 2: Similar Publications
Many databases will allow you to browse to
related records.
This could allow you to quickly see other
publications by the same author…
… articles which have been classified by the
database as research on similar subjects…
… or articles tagged with similar keywords
provided by authors (which can be useful for
new fields, before a ‘subject classification’ has
been defined.

Other databases may use automatic
algorithms to present lists of related
articles based on keywords, subject,
shared reference lists and citing
articles, authors or other factors.

Citation databases such as Scopus
and Web of Science offer additional
functionality, such as associating
publications to broad “topics” based
on clusters of citing documents.
These can help highlight highly cited
publications within that topic which
may be of interest.
TIP: You don’t need to understand
the details of how the topics are
formed to quickly check if there might
be anything of interest highlighted!

Ask your Faculty Librarian for guidance on which
databases are best suited for your subject, and how
to navigate the content within those databases.

Related Results 3: Text-mining
Text-mining is the use of automated tools to quickly
identify, extract, search and analyse (usually) large
quantities of text to discover new or unknown
information.
Whilst we won’t look at details here, or explore the
large scale use of text-mining in larger research
projects, you may find some examples of small scale
use useful if you have the full text of an article you
have found (and are doing this for your own personal
research)…

JSTOR provides a simple text-
analyser which allows you to upload
a document you have…
… it will analyse the text to identify a
range of key terms….

… it will use these terms to
search its own collections to
find any related articles which
may be of interest (whilst
allowing you to change the
combination of identified
terms).
TIP: This may also be useful
in helping to identify
keywords for your own
search strategy… as long as
you evaluate the impact of
these on your search!

Ask your Faculty Librarian for guidance on any
relevant services within your subject area which may
be of interest.

Related Results 4: Related commentary
Some of the scholarly publications you find may
have been discussed outside of traditional
scholarly channels.
This may include discussion in social media or
on academic blogs, coverage in the local,
national or international news, citation in
government policy or use as references in
Wikipedia articles…
… all of this might be useful to help frame the
research in a wider , real-world debate.

Related Results 4: Related Commentary
• ‘Altmetric’ tools offer you a
complementary tool to citation
searching in citation databases,
allowing you to see sharing of works
outside of traditional scholarly
publication channels.
• There are several providers of
altmetric data, but we’ll highlight tow
services here you can use for free:
Altmetric.com and PlumX Metrics.

You may spot the
Altmetric Donut in our
Connexions service, or on
our own digital repository…

Or you may spot the PlumX Metrics
symbol next to articles in some academic
databases, such as Scopus or those
provided via Ebsco.

For any article with a Digital Object Identifier
(DOI), just type https://plu.mx/a/?doi= , followed
by the DOI, into your browser to see altmetric data
from PlumX Metrics…
For example:

… or install the Altmetric.com Bookmarklet into
your browser bookmarks bar, for free…
Just visit…
https://www.altmetric.com/products
/free-tools/bookmarklet/

Ask your Faculty Librarian for guidance on exploring
altmetrics for articles you have found, or visit out
LibGuide at:
https://durham-
uk.libguides.com/research_support/evaluate_altmetrics

Let’s finish by quickly highlighting:
(1) Related Results

Keeping up to date
Once you are happy with a search strategy
most academic databases will allow you to set
up an automated alert to let you know when
new publications or additions have been found
which match your search terms.

Keeping up to date
Setting up an alert can
save you having to log
in and repeat the search
yourself, but remember:
1) Revise your search
terms as your
knowledge and research
changes.
2) This only saves you
time if you have the
time to keep up with the
alerts you receive by
email!

So in summary:
Citation searching & alerts can help place the key articles you have found
within wider scholarly landscape.
Similar/Related Articles are often be provided by academic databases.
Text-mining services offered by some databases can help find other articles
based on the text of an article you already have.
Altmetric tools can help give you a broader view of how research has been
discussed, shared or applied outside of traditional scholarly communication
channels
Search alerts can help automate your searching once you are happy you
have constructed an effective search; they can keep you up to date with any
newly published or citing research that could be incorporated into your
literature review, prepare you for a supervisor meeting, seminar, conference
networking session or reading group.
Always approach your Faculty Librarian for additional help & support!
Summary

Effective Searching: Part 5 - Making your results work for you... (Generic Web)

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