How to find broad surveys of recent literature on a topic?
October 28, 2016 9:22 AM Subscribe
I'm a new PhD student and I am wondering if there is some kind of trick to finding a broad "Review of Recent Literature" or "Survey of Recent Literature" on my subject area. I've been on JSTOR and BMCR the last couple of days just trawling through single book reviews, papers etc amassing a prospective bibliography. But I do remember once last year stumbling across a gem that happened to be broad literature review on 10-20 different secondary works on the exact author I was interested in (in political philosophy). Is there a trick to it?
I have tried to optimise a bit on JSTOR by limiting subject areas - but my area of interest could fall into philosophy, politics, history, or even perhaps sociology. So I don't what to limit too much.
I have tried to optimise a bit on JSTOR by limiting subject areas - but my area of interest could fall into philosophy, politics, history, or even perhaps sociology. So I don't what to limit too much.
JSTOR often has an embargo on current periodicals; at my institution coverage stops at 2011 (5 year embargo), so it's not a great resource for recent sources.
Can you talk to your subject librarian? They will likely have some great ideas for exactly where and how you should be searching, and can also help you set up search alerts for new articles added. That relationship will help you throughout your program.
In the meantime, looking for bibliographies, pathfinders, meta-analyses, or even guides on how to do a literature review in your discipline might help.
posted by stellaluna at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Can you talk to your subject librarian? They will likely have some great ideas for exactly where and how you should be searching, and can also help you set up search alerts for new articles added. That relationship will help you throughout your program.
In the meantime, looking for bibliographies, pathfinders, meta-analyses, or even guides on how to do a literature review in your discipline might help.
posted by stellaluna at 9:38 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
It's open access week - take a look at #OAweek on twitter, there are tons of tools and tips about discovering research being posted.
A couple of tools that might be of interest (which include OA and non-OA content) include where you can input your interests and it keeps you up to date (works sort of ok),
You can subscribe to TOCs for journals
ReadCube is a reference manager that doesn't work super great for references (IMHO) but has a nice feature highlighting recent articles related to the ones in your library.
+1 on the suggestion to talk to your librarian. This is exactly what they are there for and they will be delighted to help. Your institution is probably also running lots of helpful workshops for new students right now since semester just started - be sure to check out those on Zotero, Research Data Management and the like.
posted by wingless_angel at 10:02 AM on October 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
A couple of tools that might be of interest (which include OA and non-OA content) include where you can input your interests and it keeps you up to date (works sort of ok),
You can subscribe to TOCs for journals
ReadCube is a reference manager that doesn't work super great for references (IMHO) but has a nice feature highlighting recent articles related to the ones in your library.
+1 on the suggestion to talk to your librarian. This is exactly what they are there for and they will be delighted to help. Your institution is probably also running lots of helpful workshops for new students right now since semester just started - be sure to check out those on Zotero, Research Data Management and the like.
posted by wingless_angel at 10:02 AM on October 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
Talk to your librarian! There is so much more to life than JSTOR.
posted by unknowncommand at 10:10 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by unknowncommand at 10:10 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm a recent PhD grad and unfortunately I think the answer is that doing a literature review is a skill you will get better at, but there's really no easy way. I mean, the above answers are correct - type in "BLA BLA review" into Google Scholar* and cross your fingers - but often, you can miss whole segments of the field due to not knowing the correct keywords to search for. I can't tell you how often this has happened to me when looking into a new field.
*It's a bit of an embarrassment for the research field, but Google Scholar is WAY better than any of the specialized research search tools.
Here are my best suggestions for being more up-to-date and informed about your field:
1. If you can, read all of the meta-analyses or review papers on the topic written in the last 4 years. That should give you the best possible overview. You can limit publication year in Google Scholar.
2. Pay attention to the papers that PubMed suggests you might be interested in based on whatever you're currently reading. PubMed's search feature is terrible, but the "related" papers are often worth looking at.
3. If you possibly can, talk to somebody else who knows ANYTHING about the field and ask them for good search terms. Often even somebody as new as you can dig up new stuff. A lit search team of 3 people is WAY better than doing it alone.
4. See if there are any specialty journals written about your subject that are published once every 2 years or something. They often have "state of" reviews that are very informative.
5. Start visiting the homepage of the most relevant journals once a week or so, and just browse through whatever's being talked about. You'll start to recognize the popular subjects, key terms, and so on.
6. Follow any popular science blogs/magazines on your topic on Twitter. This is a surprisingly good way to see recent research. Always follow up with the actual paper.
7. Get on ResearchGate and find some of the "luminaries" in your field. I know it's really hard to figure out who are the luminaries when you're first getting started, but if you have any idea who's big news, check out their work on ResearchGate, follow links to their coauthors, etc.
8. Check out Wikipedia. I'm serious! It's not going to point you to great research directly, but it might give you some sense of the most important topics and disagreements in the field, which you can then track down in the literature.
9. Look up a chart of impact factors in your field. Find the 3 most influential journals and read the titles of all the papers in the last 3 issues. That should give you a good sense of the zeitgeist.
posted by Cygnet at 10:13 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
*It's a bit of an embarrassment for the research field, but Google Scholar is WAY better than any of the specialized research search tools.
Here are my best suggestions for being more up-to-date and informed about your field:
1. If you can, read all of the meta-analyses or review papers on the topic written in the last 4 years. That should give you the best possible overview. You can limit publication year in Google Scholar.
2. Pay attention to the papers that PubMed suggests you might be interested in based on whatever you're currently reading. PubMed's search feature is terrible, but the "related" papers are often worth looking at.
3. If you possibly can, talk to somebody else who knows ANYTHING about the field and ask them for good search terms. Often even somebody as new as you can dig up new stuff. A lit search team of 3 people is WAY better than doing it alone.
4. See if there are any specialty journals written about your subject that are published once every 2 years or something. They often have "state of" reviews that are very informative.
5. Start visiting the homepage of the most relevant journals once a week or so, and just browse through whatever's being talked about. You'll start to recognize the popular subjects, key terms, and so on.
6. Follow any popular science blogs/magazines on your topic on Twitter. This is a surprisingly good way to see recent research. Always follow up with the actual paper.
7. Get on ResearchGate and find some of the "luminaries" in your field. I know it's really hard to figure out who are the luminaries when you're first getting started, but if you have any idea who's big news, check out their work on ResearchGate, follow links to their coauthors, etc.
8. Check out Wikipedia. I'm serious! It's not going to point you to great research directly, but it might give you some sense of the most important topics and disagreements in the field, which you can then track down in the literature.
9. Look up a chart of impact factors in your field. Find the 3 most influential journals and read the titles of all the papers in the last 3 issues. That should give you a good sense of the zeitgeist.
posted by Cygnet at 10:13 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
I second the suggestion to contact a subject librarian at your school. Not only can they help you do this kind of search, but they can teach you the skills so you can replicate it in other, related fields.
Generally, I'd advise you to befriend librarians NOW, at the beginning of grad school. They are gods and goddesses among academics and will make your life easier and far more interesting.
p.s. I Am Not a Librarian.
posted by helpthebear at 11:51 AM on October 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
Generally, I'd advise you to befriend librarians NOW, at the beginning of grad school. They are gods and goddesses among academics and will make your life easier and far more interesting.
p.s. I Am Not a Librarian.
posted by helpthebear at 11:51 AM on October 28, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have published an essay like you describe, but in a different discipline. My understanding is that they are called "review essays" so you might want to use that as a search term.
posted by mortaddams at 5:15 PM on October 28, 2016
posted by mortaddams at 5:15 PM on October 28, 2016
My academic field is different from yours, but in my experience, dissertations often provide more detailed and leisurely background information than research articles. Maybe look for recent dissertations on similar topics?
posted by yarntheory at 7:41 PM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yarntheory at 7:41 PM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Re: dissertations I've often found them available for download at worldcat. Nthing talking to a librarian.
posted by azalea_chant at 10:44 PM on October 28, 2016
posted by azalea_chant at 10:44 PM on October 28, 2016
There are a number of strategies, none mutually exclusive, and the best solutions are found by pursuing them all concurrently. As others have pointed out, JSTOR's just one online publishing platform, which will only have a subset of journals in your field, and you're going to miss everything relevant in a Taylor & Francis journal, or an OUP one, or a Springer Nature group one, or ... So you want to be looking at cross-platform indexing databases. I don't know what your field is, exactly, but in mine, that would be MLA or LION or Historical Abstracts. Your subject librarian will be able to tell you which of the databases your university library subscribes to will be best.
Second strategy: comb the footnotes and reference lists of articles you've already found that are relevant to your topic. This will turn up a lot slightly left field and older stuff you might not know was relevant if you search databases for keywords alone. Older references often suffer from poor metadata in online databases and can lack visibility for that reason.
Third strategy: get a Google Scholar account and subscribe to updates for keyword search terms in your area, new articles by the key active researchers in your discipline, and citations to central articles in your field. This will keep you up to date on new publications. Also, subscribe to TOC updates for the central journals in your subject area.
Fourth: keep an eye on recent conference schedules in your field. This can be a great way of turning up emerging research or identifying researchers who are doing relevant stuff to you. If they've got one conference paper on your area, a search of their publication lists on their institutional websites will likely turn up more.
Fifth: remember, this is an iterative process and you will always be adding to your list of relevant publications. Make a habit of adding new references to your bibliography on a regular basis.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:24 AM on October 29, 2016
Second strategy: comb the footnotes and reference lists of articles you've already found that are relevant to your topic. This will turn up a lot slightly left field and older stuff you might not know was relevant if you search databases for keywords alone. Older references often suffer from poor metadata in online databases and can lack visibility for that reason.
Third strategy: get a Google Scholar account and subscribe to updates for keyword search terms in your area, new articles by the key active researchers in your discipline, and citations to central articles in your field. This will keep you up to date on new publications. Also, subscribe to TOC updates for the central journals in your subject area.
Fourth: keep an eye on recent conference schedules in your field. This can be a great way of turning up emerging research or identifying researchers who are doing relevant stuff to you. If they've got one conference paper on your area, a search of their publication lists on their institutional websites will likely turn up more.
Fifth: remember, this is an iterative process and you will always be adding to your list of relevant publications. Make a habit of adding new references to your bibliography on a regular basis.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:24 AM on October 29, 2016
Sorry: I think I misread your question! To try and answer the question you actually asked, there certainly are some journals that regularly do this. Every year, there will be a "recent work in ..." review article, or an annotated bibliography. It's a matter of knowing which journals do this. Your supervisor will know. Ask them. Also, look for journals in Wiley's Compass series. "History Compass," "Sociology Compass," "Philosophy Compass." There may be one for politics too. Each issue is nothing but broad literature surveys on given topics. They're an utter goldmine, I tend to find.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:38 AM on October 29, 2016
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:38 AM on October 29, 2016
1. Find some earlier, foundational articles on your topic, and do a citation search on those articles (in google scholar, JSTOR, or wherever).
2. Do citation searches on the articles that you currently have, as well as any new articles on the topic that you find.
3. Go through the bibliographies of all of the articles that you current have, and look up the articles listed that you don't currently have (unless they are obviously unrelated). Then look through their bibliographies, etc.
One of my research projects is interdisciplinary between several fields within math as well as computer science. I'm still finding new articles on the topic, because previous researchers in different fields didn't talk to each other, were unaware of each others' work, and uses entirely different terminology. This is a topic that formed the meat of a chapter of my dissertation 12 or 13 years ago. Sometimes that happens. As others have suggested, asking more experienced folks in your discipline to suggest search terms is a good idea. When an article references a book, that can sometimes give you a broader array of potential search terms as well.
Re: ask a librarian: your academic library will likely have a librarian assigned to your department as a subject area specialist. This is probably listed somewhere on the library's website. You can reach out to this librarian directly.
posted by eviemath at 11:06 AM on October 29, 2016
2. Do citation searches on the articles that you currently have, as well as any new articles on the topic that you find.
3. Go through the bibliographies of all of the articles that you current have, and look up the articles listed that you don't currently have (unless they are obviously unrelated). Then look through their bibliographies, etc.
One of my research projects is interdisciplinary between several fields within math as well as computer science. I'm still finding new articles on the topic, because previous researchers in different fields didn't talk to each other, were unaware of each others' work, and uses entirely different terminology. This is a topic that formed the meat of a chapter of my dissertation 12 or 13 years ago. Sometimes that happens. As others have suggested, asking more experienced folks in your discipline to suggest search terms is a good idea. When an article references a book, that can sometimes give you a broader array of potential search terms as well.
Re: ask a librarian: your academic library will likely have a librarian assigned to your department as a subject area specialist. This is probably listed somewhere on the library's website. You can reach out to this librarian directly.
posted by eviemath at 11:06 AM on October 29, 2016
I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned Annual Reviews yet (website sucks on mobile), they are very diverse and topical and if there isn't one on your exact topic then bits of pieces of several would likely be helpful. Limited more or less to Science and Social Science though.
posted by Rumple at 2:27 PM on October 30, 2016
posted by Rumple at 2:27 PM on October 30, 2016
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Where the topic is the topic that you're interested in. Alternatively there is a button on the left you can check for review and then search just TOPIC
Often times at the top of an article it either says original research or Review. There are likely many reviews, but they probably cover 100 articles (original research) in that field of study.
posted by Kalmya at 9:28 AM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]