Informatics Research Review

Searching the literature

Work from last week

Ask the person next to you:

Did they find a paper to read?

What did they think of it?
What do they want to read next?

After a few minutes you will summarise their

plans for the group.

How can you identify good and bad papers?

1. What are some signs that a paper is worth

citing in your review?

2. What are some signs that a paper should be

avoided?

What are some signs that a paper is

worth citing?

Published in a good academic journal (high

impact factor or h-index)

Many citations (>30)

Respected author

Relevance to ongoing research (i.e. not just of

historical interest)

What are some signs that a paper is

best avoided?

In an obscure journal (e.g. impact factor <1)

Few citations (unless very recent)

Authors with no academic credentials (e.g.

popular press articles by journalists)

Covers outdated techniques

Ranking exercise

Why cite papers? Providing context

Familiarise yourself with your chosen topic; use

wikipedia and google to start

Once you are familiar with your topic, try to read at

least one or two good, authoritative academic papers

For a list of good machine learning journals, see

http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?
category=1702

Search methods

Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)

IEEE Xplore (ieeexplore.ieee.org)

Web of Science (webofknowledge.com)

CiteSeerX (citeseerx.ist.psu.edu)

Literature search exercise

Reference management

I use JabRef, which outputs a bibtex file

compatible with LaTeX

Before next week

1. Find 3-4 more citable papers you would like to
read
2. Think about the topic of your review
3. Summarise what you want to write about in a
few sentences (with refs)
4. Send me this summary in an email