Mathematics and Statistics
Databases for advanced literature searching
Scopus and Web of Science are competitor product databases which search across selected journals from many different publishers and provide advanced features for analysing results to see trends in the literature. They can be useful for identifying review papers, highly cited papers and for searching by author. They are most useful at final project stage and for Masters and Post Graduate Researchers. You could use both or choose one which you prefer - the journal coverage is slightly different so see which one is a best fit for your project although many of the same journals are indexed by both tools.
MathSciNet provides a discipline approach to a systematic search of the literature & the BEI searches the major Education journals, irrespective of publisher.
MathSciNet (AMS)
Mathematical research literature from the American Mathematical Society.
British Education Index (via Ebsco)
A key index of British journal articles, it covers all aspects of education from preschool to higher education including special needs and is useful for the Mathematics with Education pathway.
MEDLINE (via Ebsco)
Medical literature - includes applied statistical studies e.g. survival analysis according to statistical modeling
Advanced searching support
How to devise a search strategy
Identify your keywords and get familiar with exact phrase searching, truncation, wildcards and combining terms
Final year project: literature review
How to scope the literature, identify key papers, key authors and set the scene for your final project.
Systematic Review methodology for literature searching
A systematic review is a research methodology useful for researchers writing a review article to be published. This approach could be useful for PGT students and PGRs.
SAGE Research Methods
The Library subscribes to SAGE Research Methods: a portal of text, video & project planner resources explaining different quantitative and qualitative approaches to carrying out research. Ideal for project stage students, PGT students and PGRs.
Access to Dissertations & Theses
A 'thesis' in the UK refers normally to Doctoral/ PhD level research work, while a 'dissertation' refers to Undergraduate/Postgraduate Taught level original work of a shorter length.
Theses and dissertations are not peer-reviewed but a PhD Thesis will be a very high-level piece of in-depth work and would only 'pass' after a successful defence of the thesis by the author in front of a panel of academics. (If you find a useful PhD thesis, it is worth checking Scopus or Web of Science for an author profile as it is quite common for authors to publish articles arising from the thesis.)
- PEARL This link opens in a new windowPlymouth Theses are deposited to PEARL, the university's Open Access Repository. Guidance for PGRs on depositing their theses is available. Resource guide.
- EThOS This link opens in a new windowThe UKs national thesis service. Register online to gain direct access to PhD theses. Resource guide