RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2011

Literature survey-Use of
Library, books and journals-
Midlines-Internet, Patent
Search and reprints of articles
as a source for Literature
survey
MEANING OF REVIEW LITERATURE

It consist of two words: Review and literature. The word literature has
conveyed different meaning from the traditional meaning. It doesn’t means with
reference to the languages, eg. Hindi literature, Gujarati literature, likewise. It
includes subject content: prose, poetry, dramas, novels, stories, etc. In Research
Methodology, “the literature refers to the knowledge of a particular area of
investigation of any discipline which includes theoretical, practical and its
research studies.”

The term review means to organize the knowledge of the specific area of
research to evolve knowledge to show that his study would be an addition to this
field. The task of the review of literature is highly creative and tedious because
researcher has to synthesize the available knowledge of the field in the unique
way.

Term review literature has been explained by the following way:

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 According to Good, Barr and Scates, “The competent physician must keep
abreast of the latest discoveries in the field of medicine. And that can be
possible by only use of the source of educational information.”
 According to W. R. Borg, the literature in any field forms the foundation
upon which all future work will be built. If we fail to build the foundation of
knowledge which is provided by the review of literature our work is likely to
be shallow and naïve and will often duplicate work that has already been
done better by someone else.”
 According to John W. Best, “practically all human knowledge can be found
in books and libraries. Unlike other animals that must start a new with each
generation man build upon the accumulated and recorded knowledge of
the past. His constant adding to the vast store of knowledge makes possible
progress in all the areas of human endeavor.”

By literature review one can get whole idea about the past work which has been
done. And from that one can get the scope of the work and on which area the
research is required. The primary function of the review of literature is to get
different data.

Reviewing the literature involves two phases in which

 First phase includes identifying all the relevant published material in the
problem area and reading that part of it with which are not thoroughly
familiar. And from that we develop the foundation of ideas and result on
which our own study will be built.
 The second phase of the review of literature involves writing this
foundation of ideas into a section of the research report. And by that way
giving reader the chance to think about that topic and applying their efforts
in that field.

OBJECTIVES OF THE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

These are the objectives for the reviewing the literature:

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 It provides theories, ideas, explanation or hypothesis which may prove

useful in the formulation of a new problem.
 It indicates whether the evidence already available solves the problem
adequately without requiring further investigation. It avoids the replication.
 It provides the source for hypothesis
 It suggests method, procedure, source of the data and statistical techniques
appropriate to the solution of the problem.
 It locates comparative data and finding useful in the interpretation and
discussion of the result. The conclusion drawn in the related studies may be
significantly compared and may be used as the subject for the finding of the
study.
 It helps in the developing experts and general scholarship of the
investigator in the area investigated.
 It contributes toward the accurate knowledge of the evidence of the
literature in one’s area of activity is a good avenue towards making oneself.
 The main purpose of this review is to put the hypothesis to be examined in
the research report into its proper context. And secondary purpose is to
provide readers with guidelines regarding where they can look to find more
information and to establish limitation of the previous studies.

PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURES FOR THE LITERATURE OF REVIEW

 Overall idea about the problem we can get by the reading the text books.
Books can provide theoretical aspects of the problem. It is very essential to
develop deep understanding about the variables and the field.
 After developing the basic idea about the problem, the investigator should
review the empirical researches of the area. The best reference for this
phase is the handbook of the research, encyclopedia of educational
research.
 The research for library material must be systematic and thorough. When
large number of the references is there, it should be typed because
precision is required.
 The investigator should take as complete notes as he might need
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 Reading should be at high speed which can be developed by practice.

Superficial reading must be avoided and detailed survey should be carried
out. The actual note taking process is always a difficult task and it takes
long hours for that.

USE OF LIBRARY

The educational research studies can be classified in to two categories: library

research and field research. Philosophical and historical research is known as
library research in which it is called as method or research. The survey and
experimental research are the field research in which it is called as technique
research. In both the type library is used extensively.

Following facilities should be available in the good libraries:

 Typing facilities at very nominal charges.

 They should make use of photo state facilities for maps, charts, diagrams,
or table. It should be available at minimum charges.
 Another very satisfactory procedure is to dictate notes directly from the
references in to a portable tape-recorder
 There is inter library loan should be provided. The research scholar can
request the librarian for references or unpublished thesis from other
university library.

Precaution which should be taken in library use is the following:

 Avoid intellectual dishonesty and guard against the temptation of

appropriating large portions of the work of another, without
acknowledging indebtedness.
 Guard against being conditioned by the view point of an earlier
investigators and temptation of blindly following the procedure.
 In certain cases some studies have no needed to be repeated under similar
condition in order to check on the result of the first investigation.

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 Keep touch with current developments regularly.

 In the chapter of the research report all the data including year of the
research must be provided
 Previous study should be arranged in the chronological order so growth of
the field can be known to all.
 A researcher should have good grasp of library procedures which will help
him to locate books and references needed by him without wasting most
of the time and energy

USE OF BOOKS

The most useful list of the book is present in the English language is the
Cumulative Book Index and Book Review Index, Book Review Digest. National
Union Catalogue is also useful for this purpose. There are a number of publication
that locate specific references that cover particular area of knowledge.

Search the catalog to find books

1. ZipLINK provides online access to the University of Akron Libraries

Collection. OhioLINK provides access to other university and college library
catalogs throughout the state of Ohio. Use ZipLINK and OhioLINK to find
books within the University of Akron and beyond.
2. To use the catalog effectively, use the Library of Congress Subject Headings
to determine authorized subject headings or to list ferms that come closest
to representing a subject.
3. A key-word search also can give the effective search of book.
4. Print or write down the citation or the record information such as call
number, author, title, the library where the books located.
5. Check the circulation status in the record to determine if the book is
available.
6. Use the Call Number to determine the location of the book in the library.

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USE OF JOURNALS

 Periodical indexes and abstracts are systemic guides that list citation to and
sometimes give summaries of magazines and journal articles. Indexes and
abstracts organize articles in journals, magazines and newspaper by subject
and may be in print or computer based formats or both.
 The library subscribes hundreds of the indexes and abstracts for finding
journal and general interest magazine articles.
 Print or write out full citation for articles which are permanent. A complete
citation include the name of the journal, volume, issue number, date and
page number.
 Article also provides access to an increasing number of journals which are
available electronically.

What are articles?

Articles may be a single-page story in the newspaper, a five page report in a

consumer magazine, or a 30-page study appearing in a medical journal.

For college level research, it is important to understand The Difference Between a

Popular Magazine Article and a Scholarly Journal Article.

Why articles are used for the research?

 Quality control: articles usually must be approved by an editor, or peer

review process before publication. This helps ensure quality and accuracy
generally making the articles more credible
 Current news: current events are followed and analyzed by news
magazines long before they are studied in books.
 Current research: information on the latest product, trends, research and
theories often appears first in the magazines and journals.

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 Particular information: articles are written on a vast array of topics in every

field and for every interest so they are good place to look for hard-to-find
information which is written by the experts.

Finding the articles of our interest

 The library maintains the thousands of the periodical databases and also
online access to thousands of articles.
 Periodical databases provide current updation also, in many cases they
provide full-texts and searching on the various access by keywords, title,
author, journal title.
 Some databases are also available which cover many disciplines. For
example HINARY database.

USE OF MIDLINES

(Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) is a bibliographic

database of life science and biomedical information which includes bibliographic
information for articles from acadaemic journals like medical, pharmacy,
dentistry, veterinary, nursing and healthcare. And also from biology and
biochemistry.

It is compiled the United States National of Medicine(NLM), MIDLINE is freely

available on the pubMED and Entrez system

This database contains more than 18 million records from approximately

5000mselected publication covering biomedicine and health from 1950 to the
present. The datatbase is freely accessible on the internet via the Pubmed and
another citation.

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Use the midlines is a learned skill, untrained users are sometimes frustrated with
the large numbers of the articles returned by simple searches. Related link, MeSH
terms, publication date, publication time all option make the usage easy.

ONLINE ACCESS

 PubMed is the free database accessing the MEDLINE database of citation,

abstracts and some full text articles on life science and biomedical topics.
The unites states National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of
Health maintains PubMed as part of the Entrez information retrieval
system.
It also access free to OLDMEDICINE
citation to the all articles from certain MEDLINE journals available.
It can be searched by using author’s name, title, textwords, keywords,
journal name,etc.
 MEDSUM
 GoPubMed
 HubMed
 Etblast
 Medscape
 Twease

Another PubMed services are include:

 Links to many sites providing the full-text articles and another related
source.
 Clinical queries and Special queries search filter
 Links to other citation or information such as those to related articles
 Single citation matcher
 Filters to group search result
 A spell checker
 The ability to store collections of citation, and save and automatically
update searches.

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USE OF PATENT SEARCH

Patent can be defined as exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their

assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an
invention.

The term patent usually refers to a right granted to everyone who invents or
discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or
composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.

The additional qualification utility patent is used in the United States to

distinguish it from other types of patents but should not be confused with the
utility models granted by other countries.

Why patent search?

 The largest and the most comprehensive source.

 Commercially legal and technical information.
 To avoid infringement suit.
 To stop re-inventing.

How to access the patent search?

 Through words
 Through names of author
 Through number of patent application, priority

Which are the source for patent information?

 Commercial vendors
 Internet based
 CD-ROM based
 Patent information providers in india
 Patent office branches at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Culcutta
 Patent information sysyem, Nagpur
 CSIR, New Delhi

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 National development Research corp., New Delhi.

USE OF REPRINTS OF ARTICLES

Traditionally, the author of an article is required to transfer the copyright to the

journal publisher. Publisher claimed this was necessary in order to protect
author’s rights and to coordinate permission for reprints or other use. However
many publisher now give permission to edit, print and distribute the article
commercially, but the author retain the other rights themselves.

Even if they retain the copyright to an article they allow their authors certain
rights which include the ability to reuse parts of the paper in the author’s work
and allow him to distribute a limited number of copies. In the print format such
copies are called as reprints. In the electronic format it is called as post prints.
And many online accessible journal do not take charges for the re-print of the
journals.

 Rights for reprinting is generally holded by publisher’s of the related and

author of that particular articles.
 If we want reprint of the articles then we may have to pay some fees to the
publisher or authors.
 Sometimes we can get the reprint of article freely by sending the request
application to the author or publisher of that particular article.

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