Advanced Library Skills for Physics Research

This tutorial is your guide to use the library like a pro. It covers all of the information you need to find, evaluate and organize research materials. This tutorial is designed for upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students conducting research in physics.
By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Critically evaluate information
• Identify and avoid predatory publishers
• Know where to search for relevant resources
• Apply advanced literature searching techniques
• Use a citation managers to effectively organize and cite materials

Evaluating Information

Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter you will :

Understand the importance of evaluating information

Evaluate resources and information for your research

Evaluate journals and understand Journal Impact Factors

Understand how science is presented and sometimes misinterpreted in the media

Why do we evaluate information?

We evaluate information to make sure that we are using the best resources in our research. Over 3 million research articles are published a year1. With so much information out there, it is important to critically examine each resource before you use it in your work.
We want to find information is high quality and relevant.
This section will teach you what to look for when you are evaluating resources.

Why is this important?

Though most journal articles contain reliable information, not all journal articles have the same level of quality and some can have bad
information. That is why we need to examine every article critically.

Steps to Evaluate an Article

• Read the abstract first: the abstract summarized the articles
• findings, so this will help you decide whether you want to read the full article
• Skim the article: Skim the article the first time, to see if the article passes your CRAAP test. Next, read more closely the second time and take notes
• Follow up references: you can check an articles to see if the author has used reputable sources and you can find more articles that may be useful
• See who cited an article: in some databases (Web of Science, Scopus), you can see the list of other articles that cite the article. You can also sort search results by number of citations to find highly cited, potentially important papers (note: be careful some articles are highly cited because they are contentious)

Exercise: Evaluating an Article

Would you use the following article for a paper or assignment on Newtonian physics?

Article: Are Newtonian Gravitation and Geometrized

Newtonian Gravitation Theoretically Equivalent?

Instructions:

• Take a look at the article and decide whether it is appropriate for a physics student
• Look at the highlighted details below for tips on what to look for

Conclusion

• This article is not appropriate for a physics assignment
• The author is a professor at a prestigious university, but they are a professor of Philosophy not Physics
• The journal is a well-regarded journal, but it is for Scientific Philosophy not Physics
• The article is not relevant to a physics course, thought it may be an otherwise great article