RESEARCH: Finding articles, books and other references

One of the most important parts of any report or project is finding out what has been done on the
subject before, and finding out all the different ways of doing something. This is called research, and
involves searching the published record for all publications on or around the subject or subjects you
are studying. The end result of this process is one or more literature review sections in your report,
where you cover the previous studies and show how your work expands on previous work,
contradicts it, agrees with it, or uses it. Therefore it is critical to not only find previous work, but to
critically evaluate what you are reading, and then to use the ideas present in your report, properly
referencing them as you go, and organising the ideas into a logical sequence within each section.
This guide covers some ways of searching for scholarly articles in journals, focusing particularly on
places to look for geoscience papers and publications. The second section then looks at the process
of critical evaluation, and finally on referencing and citation.

SEEK and ye shall FIND

The obvious first place to look is in the library the online library catalogue will provide you with any
book titles on your subject that are available, and the references in the books can provide you with
papers. The references in the papers provide more papers and so on, but only back in time.
http://hw.lib.ed.ac.uk/vwebv/searchBasic?sk=en_US
The next obvious place to go is the library search resources these are subject orientated, so the
Petroleum Engineering site has relevant study related text suggestions, as well as links to petroleum
engineering related databases.
http://isguides.hw.ac.uk/petroeng
Online databases these are often organisation, subject or publisher specific, and may involve
subscriptions, or access through the HW library. See the library subject page above for some access
details. Specific examples of use to Petroleum and Geoscience studies are:
OnePetro http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://www.onepetro.org/
Technical literature from professional bodies involved in the oil and gas industry. Includes
journal articles and a large amount of conference papers from organizations such as the
Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Lyell Collection http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://www.lyellcollection.org/
Journals from the Geological Society of London. Coverage is 1811 to date. Geosciency!
TULSA: Petroleum Abstracts
http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/professional/petroleumabstra
cts?accountid=16064
1965 to date. Literature about oil and gas exploration and productions.
GreenFILE
http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,athe
ns&profile=ehost&defaultdb=8gh
Database about human impact on the environment.
Compendex
http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://www.engineeringvillage.com/home.url?acw
Compendex is the leading index of journal articles about engineering research and is
accessed via Engineering Village. Some full text articles will be available via the check for
full text links.
Science Citation Index Expanded
http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://isiknowledge.com/
1970 to date. Key resource for finding good quality academic articles from science journals.
Accessed via: Web of Knowledge

ScienceDirect http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/
Very large database of academic journal articles covering most subject areas. (ScienceDirect
includes journals about non-science topics.)
Google Scholar http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://scholar.google.com/
Google Scholar allows you to search for scholarly literature such as journal articles, theses
and books from a wide range of sources.
Applied Science & Technology Full Text
http://ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype
=ip,athens&profile=ehost&defaultdb=asf
1983 to date. Searches contents of journals from multiple publishers. A multidisciplinary
database covering a broad range of science and technology subjects in the fields of physics,
engineering, chemical engineering, chemistry, construction, mathematics, computing,
energy, biomedical materials, food industry, petroleum engineering and textiles. Accessed
via: EBSCOhost
Science Direct http://www.sciencedirect.com/
Provides searches among Elsevier journals, including all the science branches
Other publishers:
Look for other publishers, and search their websites or databases for articles, e.g. Springer
(http://www.springer.com/), GSA Publications (http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/), Wiley
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/), Highwire (http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl).
Databases:
A number of sites keep databases or use databases of publications, for example
GeoScienceWorld (http://www.geoscienceworld.org/), JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/).
Journals:
Go to individual journal homepages and search for relevant articles, e.g. SPE (available
through OnePetro see above), Sedimentary Geology, Petroleum Geology, AAPG Bulletin
etc. You can find journal titles on the library catalogue, or by searching online (google!).

READ it CRITICALLY
Literature review is not just about collecting the opinions of a number of other authors and writing
them down, it is about evaluating the evidence presented in each paper, making your own mind up
about what is right, and justifying that opinion using published work. Bear in mind that all papers
are based on the opinions of the authors, and that not all of them are or can be correct. Ideas
change with time as well, so that earlier papers are contradicted by later papers, which may be
contradicted again. It is therefore impossible for everything published to have the same value in
our individual estimation, and this means we must be critical in our reading and not just accept
everything written at face value. A good literature review would show that the student had
developed their own ideas or justified their argument using a wide range of sources each of which
have been thoroughly analysed, applied or discounted. Dont leave out papers just because they
contradict your position, it is on the contrary vitally important that you put them in, so that you can
justify your taking a contrary position.
Deconstruction of literature for critical analysis:
What to look at:
Date of the research being reported on (is it current?)
Authors credentials
Data collection methods
Style:
Is it constructed clearly? Can you follow the arguments through to a logical conclusion?

Does the use of tables, charts, diagrams and figures add value to the conclusions or
explanation?
Analysis:
What is the central issue dealt with in the paper?
What assumptions have been made in analysis and in the underpinning philosophy, and
especially about the general applicability of the results?
What evidence supports these assumptions?
In what ways is this article similar/different to others you have read?
Reflection
How do you respond to what the paper is saying?
How do you rate the article?
How does it relate to other concepts you have come across?
Does it point to further research?
Is it relevant to your current research?
Not all of these questions necessarily need to be answered explicitly in your text, but they are things
you need to keep in mind when reading articles and when summarizing them for your review. It may
be worth considering keeping a spreadsheet or database of papers read, with comments in these
different areas, and a summary of the main points of the paper relevant to you at the end.
It is essential to have some way of keeping track of your papers and what you read most
researchers use some kind of database reference tracking programme, like Endnote (available on the
university system), which also makes creating the reference list from the citations at the end of the
paper writing process much easier.

CITE it PROPERLY
It is important to make sure that whenever you use an idea that is sourced from someone else, that
you cite the source paper at the location where you are using the idea, and then include the paper in
your reference list at the back of your report. Not citing is plagiarism, and I invite you to check your
handbook and the university website for the penalties imposed if plagiarism is detected. Note that
all ideas must also be expressed in your own words, unless explicitly quoted (usually using a different
style or formatting of the text to make the quotation clear). Quoting is not recommended generally,
as it makes it difficult to integrate the ideas expressed with your own argument.
Citations come in a number of different formats. We do not have a particular style that we require,
so you can choose which you use, but you must be consistent throughout the document, so citation
and reference style is one of the first things to decide when creating documents that will be merged
from multiple authors (e.g. group projects).
Citations can be numbered, with superscript numbers in the text (with 1 being the first citation, the
reference list is then produced in the citation order).
Citations can also appear as the authors names and dates in brackets after the idea (e.g. (Brackett,
2012), or (Bone and Gump 2009), or (Brother et al. 2001) for multiple authored papers.). The
inclusion of commas, stops or the use of & instead of and are style issues, but again, must be
consistent within a single document. If a paper is not yet published, use in press, if you are referring
to an idea obtained by personal discussion use pers. comm., if you are referring to a website,
please use some code in the text and place the full website address in the reference list.
Authors can also be cited directly if you prefer e.g. The work of Bone and Gump (2009) shows
that - note that the date in this case goes in brackets, but the authors are part of the sentence
structure.

FIGURES are usually also taken from somewhere, and also must be cited this is usually in the figure
caption. If you are redrawing the figure with minor alterations, use after Brackett (2012). If you are
lifting the figure entirely then it is from Brackett (2012).

LIST your REFERENCES

All the papers, books, webpages and so on that you refer to in the text (your citations) must have an
entry in the reference list, which gives the full details of the publication. There are again various
ways of formatting these lists different journals have different styles, and we dont mind which
you use, except that it must be consistent throughout the list. Generally lists are ordered
alphabetically, unless you are using the numerical citation system, in which case they are usually in
order of citing. If you are using a referencing programme such as Endnote, the programme will take
care of the formatting for you; just select your favoured style. Be aware that the list generated will
usually require minor editing, since it is rare that a database will be entirely free of errors!
Some examples are:
Abbott, S.M. and Lewis, E.J. 2009: Laboratory method for the practical demonstration of
Schrdingers feline experiment. Journal of Modern Psychology, v 23(2), p. 275-302.
Berrow, F.G., Halogen, E., Ogden, O.R. and Watson, W.E. 2012: Geological Field Techniques for
Undergraduate Students. Springer-Verlag. Pp. 157.