Whatever type of project you are doing you will need to find relevant literature. This might just be used to provide context, or it might be the main part of your project if you are doing the critical review. You should concentrate on finding peer-reviewed journal articles, but these can be supplemented with information from books. Websites should be used with caution. All the literature you use should be cited and referenced following the guidance given on the 'Referencing' page in this guide:
You might also want to consider using a reference management tool such as EndNote, especially if you are doing the critical review:
Journal articles are usually short papers on specific topics. They are published in issues or parts of journals (also called periodicals) which appear regularly. Use articles to find:
You can find journal articles via our Summon discovery service or online databases.
Search Summon
Search the Summon discovery service using the box below to find full-text journal articles available via the Library. Search using topic words or use it to find out if we have access to a specific article by searching for the article title.
Search relevant databases
You should also search relevant databases to widen your search beyond the Library's holdings. See the box below for suggested titles. They will give you references to journal articles and other publications - they may also give you the full-text of the article. They are not limited to the Library's journal subscriptions, so you may need to use the inter-library loans service to get hold of some articles.
Journals which have a peer review process are generally considered more reliable than other journals. All articles submitted to a peer reviewed journal are checked by other experts in the field before they are published.
Recently, there has been a growth in pre-print servers that host early versions of articles that are not peer reviewed in order to communicate findings as early as possible. As you may have found an article via a search engine rather than a journal or publisher website, it is important to make sure that you are aware of the peer review status of the article.
References to journal articles in the biomedical sciences. Covers 1950 to the present day. Includes 'In press' articles.
If you wish to extend your search further you might want to explore these databases.
Gives references to journal articles, books, conference proceedings and patents in all subjects. Also offers extensive tools to analyse results, and measure impact for articles, journals and authors.
This short playlist shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search.
We also have the following generic guide to literature searching and searching databases:
Use the template below to help plan out your own literature search - identifying keywords and synonyms. There's also an example to help guide you.
If you are unable to access the full-text of articles you need for your project we can usually get them from another library via our inter-library loans service. You can request up to 10 articles from this service. On filling in the request form you will usually receive the article by email within a couple of days.
