Searching the Scientific Literature Douglas A. Loy

Reasons for searching the literature Find raw data to test dogma for yourself Find procedures for experiments Ensure that your idea or invention is original Give credit to those who did the work first For the joy of doing the research

For patents, proposals and papers, you must determine if your work is original Multiple, exhaustive searches of literature Use reviews, dissertations, & encyclopedias Alternative keywords Chemical structures Chemical Abstract System (CAS #) Search back as far as literature goes

Citing Original work “prior art” Knowingly ignoring prior art is fraud Only citing your own work or part of literature is fraud Even the most careful search of the literature may miss prior art. Excusable if you have evidence of having made a reasonable effort to find prior art.

Searching the literature before % of your time was spent in the library searching through the chemical abstracts and then checking papers Chemical Abstracts Journals Encyclopedias Hard or bound tomes in libraries

Searching the literature today Worst Best Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia Scifinder, Web of Science, Reayxs Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Encyclopedias, Dissertations, Reviews

Strategy for complete searches Structure search CAS number(s) Focus in on topic with key words Identify key papers – See who the author cited in paper – See who is citing the papers Search authors for additional papers Obtain dissertations from authors groups to expand citation base

Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry 6th ed. Wiley-VCH, 2001 Technical Encyclopedias Often have industry based authors Facts unavailable in journals

Beilstein Beilstein's 'Handbuch der organischen Chemie’ 3 million organic compounds until 1979 listing their name, molecular formula, structural formula, all methods of preparation, important physical, chemical and biological properties, occurrence in nature, and information about derivatives. Online for fee

Free Online Synthesis Databases/search systems Chemogenesis Focus: Chemogenesis is a web book, dealing with chemical reactions and chemical reactivity. Organic Syntheses (ORGSYN) Focus: high-yield synthetic methods and preparations of specific compounds Coverage: 2400 articles and over 6000 reactions SyntheticPages Focus: SyntheticPages is a freely available interactive database of synthetic chemistry. Coverage: 292 reactions Webreactions Focus: Reaction search system Coverage: about 400,000 individual reactions Access: Online

Journals with review articles only Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry, section Chemical Reviews Chemical Society reviews Specialist Periodical Reports Uspekhi Khimii (Russian Chemical Reviews) Progress in Polymer Science

-Set up & maintained by American Chemical Society -Subject: identification data of all types of chemical substances - Sources: > 9,000 journals, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, dissertations, reviews, web preprints (1957- ) -Records: > 50 million substances -Searchable by Scifinder CAS Registry Has, for all practical purposes, replaced Beilstein

Chemical Abstracts (ACS) -Subject: bibliographic data of all areas of chemistry and chemical engineering -Sources: > 9,000 journals, 50 active patent-issuing authorities, conference proceedings, technical reports, books, dissertations, reviews, web preprints (1907- ) - Records: > 24 million Search: Bibliographic terms, indexing terms, CAS Registry Numbers and CA abstractsGuides: STN database summary sheet, STN -Access: Scifinder/Scifinder Scholar, STN, STN Easy

By Number of Citations

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How to evaluate what journals to publish or read: Citation impact

Summary You must cite the literature for patents, papers and proposals Failure to do so can lead to loss of job and degree Search engines provide highly productive tools Exhaustive searches with varied keywords Structure and CAS searches best