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Engineering Librarian
Introduction
Welcome to your library course guide for CSCI 4511W, intended to the literature review assignment as part of your final project. If you have questions on any of the information below or with finding what you need, you are welcome to email me (hcabullo@umn.edu) or schedule a research consultation.
- Hannah Cabullo, your Computer Science & Engineering librarian
Tutorial: Researching and writing a literature review
After completing this tutorial, you will:
- Understand the purpose and value of a literature review
- Recognize the procedure behind an effective literature review
Searching for literature
When doing a literature review, it is important to search multiple places, since you are working to understand the state of knowledge on your topic. Below are our main databases for computer science, and they contain a variety of types of sources (primarily journal articles and conference proceedings).
Use the search tips below to combine your search terms.
- ACM (Association For Computing Machinery) Digital LibraryFull text of most Association for Computing Machinery journals and proceedings since 1950. It also includes publications of affiliated organizations.
- ScopusSearch for information from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
- IEEE XploreFull-text access to the transactions, journals, magazines and conference proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Includes all current IEEE Standards.
Search tips
The following search tips tend to work across different databases:
- Use the word AND to link concepts together: innovation AND product complexity
- Use the word OR with parentheses to search for synonyms: education AND (AI OR artificial intelligence)
- Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase: “knowledge management”
- Use an asterisk to search for multiple endings of a root word: comput* - to find compute, computer, computing, computation
Tutorial: Database search tips
Improve your searches! This guide will help you:
- Apply search modifiers AND, OR, and NOT to your database searches
- Recognize phrase searching and other advanced search techniques