Literature databases and references management

Dr. Enrico Ferrari

Email: EFerrari@lincoln.ac.uk

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk
 Outline
• Referencing
• Social Networks
• Elements of bibliometrics
• Searching literature
– Scopus (hands-on training)

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk Slide 2

Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Referencing
• Harvard vs Vancouver
– Vancouver-like systems (author-number): “A major breakthrough, that had a huge impact on biosciences was
the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA [1]”
…
References (listed in order of appearance)
[1] Watson JD and Crick FHC. Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids. Nature 1953, 171:737-738.

– Harvard-like systems (author-date): “A major breakthrough, that had a huge impact on biosciences was the
discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA (Watson and Crick, 1953)”
…
References (listed in alphabetical order)
Watson, James D. and Crick, Francis H.C. (1953) “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids”, Nature 171:737-738.

Vancouver: can be very compact, doesn’t take any extra space in the main body of the text, reads
smoothly because there are no interruptions in the main text, you tend to ignore the actual citation,
it’s a nightmare to rearrange references if any amendment is required.
Harvard: you can spot familiar names easily, after reading the paper is clear which are the relevant
authors and papers, immediate idea of how old is a reference, no renumbering hassle when
rearranging references, references take up space in the main text body, mixing main text with too
many brackets might look inelegant.

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Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Referencing software
• Reference managers
– RefWorks
– End Note
– Papers: app for Mac, iPad and iPhone users
• Free and inclusive of social network-like features
– CiteULike (link): often embedded into journals websites, easy to share
papers and build your own library
– Mendeley (link): not always embedded into websites but it has a quick link to
save papers in your collection. It has a desktop version mobile apps.
– ReadCube (link): relatively new desktop application, both for Windows and
Mac

• Journals abbreviations
– If you don’t know how to abbreviate a journal title go here.

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Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Social Networks
• ResearchGate (people, Q&A, papers, groups)

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk Slide 5

Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Elements of bibliometrics
• Reading the right journals (Journal Citation Reports)

The journal Impact Factor is

the average number of times
articles from the journal
published in the past two years
have been cited in the JCR year
(currently 2015)

Cites in 2015 (in any journal) to items

published in 2013-2014 = 4234

Number of 2015 items in the journal = 128

Calculation: Cites to recent items (4234)

Number of recent items (128)

=33.078

It means articles published in the previous 2

years in this journal have been cited on
average 33.078 times in any other journal in
the last year

See also this link

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Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Elements of bibliometrics
• Reading the right authors
– Sometimes it is useful to know who are the most active and “respectable”
authors in the field (later we’ll find out how using Scopus)
– While journals impact is measured by the IF (Impact Factor), often authors’
productivity is measured by the h-index:

Example:

Papers Citations
Paper 1 15
Paper 2 12
Paper 3 5
Paper 4 4
Paper 5 3
Paper 6 2
Paper 7 1
Paper 8 1

h-index =4
He/She published 4 papers that have
been cited at least 4 times

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Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Searching literature
• Most important search tools:
– University of Lincoln Library website
– Pubmed/NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information)
– Google Scholar
– Scopus (more details later)
– Web of Science (Thomson Reuters, very similar to Scopus)
– Journals website

for the list of subscriptions go to

library.lincoln.ac.uk > Find > Electronic journals

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Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Scopus
• Huge database of scientific articles
• Powerful search tools
• Deep analysis
• Accurate citation data

• How to connect to the service:

– Within the university network just go to www.scopus.com

– From home it is more complicated:

library.lincoln.ac.uk > Find > Databases > “S” > Scopus Log In
alternatively you can log in using “athens” from Scopus main page.

Also available when using Cloud Desktop

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk Slide 9

Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Hands on session
During the training you will go through the following tasks:

1. Find a suitable review about PCR

2. Find where most documents about SARS have been published
3. Retrieve info about an author
4. Retrieve info about an institute

At home you’ll be able to train on the following case studies:

1. Writing a literature review

2. Selling a scientific instrument to an opinion leader
3. Head hunting
4. Apply for a phd in the “perfect” institute for you

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk Slide 10

Dr. Enrico Ferrari

 Summary
• Referencing choose the style, use it properly,
organize papers

• Social Networks don’t count too much on this

• Elements of bibliometrics learn how to recognize good sources,

important authors and papers

• Searching literature explore the options available but try to

make use of Scopus or Web of Science
superpowers

http://eferrari.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk Slide 11

Dr. Enrico Ferrari