Searching for academic literature may seem like locating a particular grain on the global digital beach of sand, but can become an artistic endeavour rather than work, with proper strategies. Whether you are a seasoned academic or a student new to research, the academic journal search is one of the foundations of any successful project. The process transcends simply entering some words into Google Scholar; it requires creative, disciplined, iterative methods that facilitate finding relevant and influential resources across disciplines: i.e., humanities, sciences and social sciences. Let’s explore practical methods for going beyond basic search techniques and discovering high-quality resources and relevant research in your area of interest!

The first step in beginning your research paper is conducting an exploratory search. Beginning your research with overly specific terms will limit your results and get you stuck before you even start searching. Rather than just starting out looking for terms like “The impact of urban green spaces on community well-being”, you should perform some exploratory searches with general terms for both of your controlled keywords, such as “urban green spaces” and “community well-being”. This is the critical stage of your search process. You need to see how the literature around your area of interest is structured, the predominant authors writing about this area, and what terminology is being used by experts who work in this field. You can begin to identify which terms are most widely accepted among scholars, such as “psychological well-being”, “social cohesion”, or “mental health benefits” to help you in defining your area. Step one for every successful research paper search is doing this preliminary reconnaissance. You will refine your vocab/a great deal after this reconnaissance phase, as it will guide you through your research and into using the correct terms when searching. In addition, be aware of the titles and abstracts of the papers that you find, as they provide clues to which words are consistently used in that field; thus, they are your guide to the academic lexicon that you will need when doing your research.

After you’ve completed mapping the area, use the advanced search capabilities of the major databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, JSTOR, IEEE Xplore, etc.) to hunt like a pro. Most of these databases include a great deal of function for searching but may not be used to their full potential by most. If you want to narrow down your search for an academic paper to your best possible chance, then you must learn how to make use of the advanced search capabilities with each of these databases. One way you can do this is to use quotation marks to search by exact phrases (for example, “cognitive behavioral therapy”). Another tool is the minus sign, which allows you to exclude terms from your search. If you do a search for “machine learning -deep” this will exclude a significant number of articles regarding deep learning and greatly reduce the number of articles you have to wade through. “Site:” is also a very powerful tool; if you know that a specific university or research organization has a high-quality program in your area, you can limit your search to only that university or research organization (for example: site:harvard.edu “neural networks”). In addition, search for the relevant scholarly literature using the “author:” operator to track down the body of work by a prominent academician you’ve identified. These resources can help you conduct an academic paper search from a shot gun approach to a sniper’s target, eliminating the hours spent trying to locate records that are not relevant.

To conduct an interdisciplinary academic paper search, you need to think of synonyms as well as related terms/concepts. While we all may be studying the same thing — such as how human beings function in certain situations — there are all types of different languages (i.e., jargon) that are used by different academic disciplines when discussing those issues. For example: A sociologist may use the term “social capital,” whereas a public health person may refer it to “community resilience,” and an economist may refer to them as “network externalities.” Therefore, an effective interdisciplinary academic search must utilize linguistic agility. As a first step before starting your search, compile a list of alternative terms and phrases. To help get started on this list, consult a thesaurus and review the “keyword titles” of articles/papers that you have found related to your topic. Additionally, many databases have subject headings (also known as controlled vocabularies) that will provide you with additional vocabulary that can help enhance your search; an example of a controlled vocabulary is MeSH terms in PubMed, or subject headings in PsycINFO. By utilizing these discipline-specific lexicons to conduct your literature search, you will be able to find a whole set of literature that you would not have found using just the original keyword list. In this manner, expanding your search vocabulary is the difference between doing a superficial literature review and creating a completely original, comprehensive academic literature search.

The two methods of connecting information through links are valuable when conducting research and should not be ignored; backward searching (finding other works that were referenced in a pivotal piece of literature) will lead the researcher to the original references and sources of information; for example, if the researcher identifies a key article (2015) on cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease, he/she can then find articles that have been published in the ten years preceding this article (e.g., 2006-2015) describing the key studies on this topic; for example, if the researcher uses Google Scholar to search for articles published after the pivotal piece of literature (2015) that cited this article (Cited By button), he/she will be able to identify the ongoing evolution of this idea, the current debate on this topic, and the latest evidence on this topic; when the researcher uses both of these methods of reverse and forward looking up literature, the researcher is creating an academic paper that reflects the full development of the consultant’s work and connects the early development of the consultant’s findings and work to the ongoing, current, and cutting-edge work in this field of study.

The final step in developing a sustainable, ongoing academic paper search system is to set up automated alerts. Research is not static; new articles are published every single day, so there is no reason to continue to repetitively perform searches every week when there is technology that can be used to do this for you. Many academic databases and other search engines allow you to save important searches that you run and set up email alerts for them. You can also create alerts for particular authors, or for key journals in your area of study. The result is that the latest, most relevant research is delivered via email directly to you, so you continuously receive the most current information without having to to continue to put forth the effort to find it on your own. This transforms your academic paper search from a periodic task into a continuous stream of current information, ensuring that you will never miss a research study that could have an impact on your work.

A successful search for an academic paper combines both artistry and science. Creative thinking to come up with many different ways to search through creative uses of keywords is important, but you should also have the analytical skill level to employ advanced filters in order to find information that can lead to a great written piece of academic work. Patience in your ability to follow citation trails will be necessary when searching for academic works, and you will need foresight to set up automated search methods for future research. By using a methodical approach to your search, you have created a repeatable and effective means of achieving this goal, regardless of whether you are writing a philosophical thesis, doing an engineering study, or completing a review in medicine/sociology/psychology etc. You will go from being overwhelmed by the amount of information that exists to feeling confident about your ability to navigate, select and synthesize the most relevant academic materials available to you, so that your academic paper search can be a significant part of your intellectual endeavor.