ES 1050 Introductory Engineering Design and Innovation Studio

This page contains information and links for the literature searching component of the SOTA report for ES 1050.

Contents:

1. Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
2. Finding Information on a Topic
3. Reading a Scholarly Article
4. Reading References (& formatting your own)

Scholarly vs. Popular Publications

In university, it is often expected that the research (publications, articles) you use to support your writing comes from scholarly literature, and not from popular magazines. Our Tutorial on Scholarly vs Popular Literature will show you the differences between the two types of publications, and how to determine if an article is scholarly or popular. For your assignments, you should only use popular magazines to obtain public opinion.

Finding Information on a Topic

Good quality information can help demonstrate the uniqueness of your design, give you ideas of what can or can't be done, and provide authority to back up your statements.

When you look for information, try following a process similar to this:
Note: this process is what you are asked to record in the Search Log component of your SOTA report.
Sample Search Log (pdf)

1. Brainstorm for any and all ideas related to your general topic.

2. Choose one idea to focus on.

3. Brainstorm for keywords related to that idea, including synonyms, alternate spellings, or related terms.

4. Combine your keywords, synonyms & related terms into a search strategy.
Tips for combining keywords:

• wildcard symbol * (e.g. comput* will find computer, computing, computation)
• operators AND, OR, NOT
• date limits (e.g. 1998-2008)
• language limits (e.g. English only)
• document type limits (e.g. only journal articles)

5. Choose sources where you will look for information.
Suggested sources to use for finding information:

• Western Libraries' Catalogue - for books & other background information
• EI Compendex - for journal articles in any area of engineering
• Inspec - for journal articles, mainly related to physics and electrical & computer engineering
• Applied Science & Technology Abstracts - for journal articles in any area of engineering
• Scopus - for journal articles in any area of engineering
• BIOSIS - for journal articles related to biological aspects of engineering
• ENGnetBASE - for engineering handbooks

For more ideas of where to search, see the Engineering Science Program Guides page.

6. Search, and refine your searches.
Tips for refining searches:

• use the limits mentioned above under #4, if you haven't already
• make note of subject headings (in the library catalogue) or controlled vocabulary (in article databases) for additional keywords to try
• click on the call number in the library catalogue record to 'browse' virtually
• use the button to see if Western Libraries has the article

Note: You can print your Search History from Compendex/Inspec, and most other article databases, and hand this in as part of your Search Log.

Reading a Scholarly Article

Tutorial on Reading a Research Article

First glance:

Context, purpose & overview

• Read the title and other publication information
• Read the abstract
• Read the introduction
• Read the discussion (sometimes results & discussion)

Look a little deeper:

How data are collected, analysed & where research is leading

• Read the methods or experiments
• Read the results
• Read the conclusions

Tip:
When you read an article, pay particular attention to the sections listed above under content, purpose & overview. Summarize the main points of the article. Avoid looking at the article while you write, to avoid plagiarism. Use the following questions as a guide:

• What is it that the researcher is studying?
• What is already known about the topic?
• What did the researchers set out to measure or evaluate?
• What are the major findings?
• What other research is suggested by these results?
• What were the experimental techniques used in this research?

Reading References

Why are references important? Why do authors of scholarly articles include references?

• To avoid charges of plagiarism
• To distinguish their original work from others'
• To demonstrate the authority of their statements
• To allow readers to verify their statements
• To assist readers who want to do further research

In order to use references as a starting point for further research, you need to be able to "read" the reference -- that is, to decipher its components -- and know how to check whether that reference is available in Western Libraries.

For the SOTA report, you are asked to use APA Style. APA (American Psychological Association) Style Guide (pdf)
The print manual is available in Taylor and Weldon, on 2 hour reserve, call number BF76.7.A46. Also useful is the APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources, in Taylor 2 hour reserve, call number PN171.F56A63 2007.

Generic forms of APA references:

Tip:
Look at the references an article you've read. Can you identify a reference for a book? for a journal article? Are there any references that you can't decipher?
Note: the references for the article you're looking at may not be in APA style, but the components given in the generic references above will still be present.

For more help:

• Taylor Library Research Help (email, phone, chat, in-person)