Periodical Articles and Conference Paper: Reviews
Literature reviews are particularly helpful in finding past research on a specific topic. In the entries below, if the index provides a way to limit a search to reviews, the steps are described after: Reviews.
Reviews: Using the QuickSearch interface, there are options for limiting your search below the search text boxes. First, uncheck the box on the left of Geobase (above the search text boxes). From the "Treatment Types" limit box (below the search text boxes), choose "General Review". If you then uncheck INSPEC (leaving only Compendex checked), an additional treatment type of "literature review" is available. If you uncheck Compendex so that only INSPEC is checked, INSPEC has an additional treatment type of "Bibliography" that might prove useful. Within Compendex, "treatment types" apply only from 1985 to 2008.
Reviews: On the Explore References search page, click the box to the left of "Review" in the Document Type(s) category (below the blue area that contains search text box).
Reviews: On the results page, look for the Document Types filter on the left. Click the box to the left of REVIEW (this only appears for those results that contain review papers; you may need to select the more options/ values). Click the Refine button.
Besides reviews that are in journal articles, there are additional places to find reviews. Reviews are helpful because someone else summarizes the research in a topical area (up to a particular date), essentially doing some of your research for you, and providing some context for that research.
Books contain more material than articles, and that additional material may contain a better overview of an area, or more context. In general, the content will be older, more descriptive, and less research-based than the content of articles. Some databases are listed below that help you identify books.