Searching scientific literature: an example from psychology by prof. dr. Brosschot
Almost every scientific study starts with an extensive literature search. You look for the articles written on your subject of interest and you'll gradually discover unanswered questions or new lines of thoughts worth exploring.
When you start writing your own article, you'll usually include a literature review summarising the existing body of research. But how can you be sure you've covered all relevant literature in your research area? Even after consulting various scientific databases, the possibility remains that you've overlooked a relevant article.
Practical tips for a literature search
Professor Jos Brosschot of Leiden University adresses this concern in a series of six videos. He gives practical tips tailored to psychological research, but the strategies will interest researchers from other fields too.
Appendix to the videos
Prof. dr. Brosschot also provides a PDF document with additional tips, which you can download here: Appendix to videos 1-6 ‘Advanced Literature Searching’
Attachments
More tips
- Database search: how to use search terms? (Search / find)
- Journal: what does "peer-reviewed" mean? (Publish)
- Peer review: what is it? (Research integrity & ethics)
- PubMed: why and how to search (Search / find)
- Resources: helpful tools to find literature (Search / find)
- Search: Boolean operators (Search / find)
- Systematic review: tips, tricks and tools (Search / find)
- Web of Science (WoS): introduction (Search / find)
Last modified Jan. 5, 2024, 4:49 p.m.