When a topic is new to you and you need an overview of the topic, encyclopediae and textbooks are great at giving an overview or introduction.
Examples:
Use UC Library Search to find encyclopediae and textbooks.
For more detailed exploration of a topic, books provide the focus you want. UC Berkeley has millions of books!
Examples:
Use UC Library Search to find books on your topic.
For lab research, handbooks and lab protocols provide information on the materials and procedures for experimental work.
Examples:
The next format type is journals. They report on the findings of current research studies, offering the most up-to-date and detailed information on a topic.
A single journal issue will have many articles, and each article is devoted to a research study. There is a standard pattern in how journal articles are written, and knowing this pattern will help you find the information you need:
Finally, databases are what you use to find journal articles. Databases let you search across many (often millions) of journal articles to find the papers relevant to your research topic.
Examples:
Books, handbooks, etc. may be found in UC Library Search, the current UC Berkeley/UC library catalog.
What to consider when thinking about your research topic
Much current research in environmental health is interdisciplinary.
The terms you use when searching PubMed, Web of Science, or other databases may need to include concepts from different fields of science.
Is your topic researchable?
What is a good Research Question? It is a question that:
This blog post has tips on how to write a good research question, including examples of bad, good, and great questions.
Information on chemicals/substances:
Before you delve into the research literature on a topic, it can be helpful to get some basic information on the substance(s) of interest.
Let's talk about indexing!
Indexing means a controlled vocabulary (a finite list of terms) is used to assign subject terms to articles.
Controlled vocabulary schemes are often hierarchical; any given term will have broader and (possibly) narrower terms. Example:
Subject terms tend to have a single, unambiguous definition. Example:
Subject terms may also be called thesaurus terms, descriptors, or (in PubMed) Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
"Research users are not passive recipients of distilled wisdom, they are active agents of critique and creative analysis."
- from "How to 'QuantCrit:' Practices and Questions for Education Data Researchers and Users," W. Castillo and D. Gillborn, 2018.
Evaluation is about determining the quality, value, or importance of something in order to take action. It is underpinned by the systematic collection of information and evidence.
What is evidence?
All research is (potentially) "evidence" and there are no "perfect" studies.
Critically evaluating what you read will help any unearth biases or methodological shortcomings that may be present.
Examples of problematic methods descriptions. From: T. Greenhalgh. How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-Based Medicine and Healthcare. John Wiley & Sons, 2019.
Is there an agenda (bias)?
It is doubtful that any study of humans is without some kind of bias, either in the study design, or in the author's pre-existing beliefs. How bias in methodology was controlled and the significance of bias in any particular study is what is relevant. Also relevant is whether the researchers addressed their biases intentionally.
Things to consider:
Who pays for science? Does it matter? (There is evidence that it does matter).
Research is usually funded by:
This article (PDF) discusses the "manufactured uncertainty" created by industry groups that sponsor research and publishing on chemicals.
Is qualitative research "evidence"?
If your goal is to understand beliefs and meanings in the group with whom you are working, then qualitative studies can be important.
Reliability and validity
Reliable data collection: relatively free from "measurement error:"
Is the survey written at a reading level too high for the people completing it?
If I measure something today, then measure it again tomorrow using the same scale, will it vary? Why?
Validity refers to how well a measure assesses what it claims to measure:
If the survey is supposed to measure "quality of life," how is that concept defined? Is it measurable?
What to consider when looking at survey or estimated data:
How is race/ethnicity reported in the studies you read?:
Ten simple rules for writing a literature review.
Pautasso M. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9(7):e1003149. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149
Conducting the Literature Search.
Chapter 4 of Chasan-Taber L. Writing Dissertation and Grant Proposals: Epidemiology, Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics. New York: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2014.
A step-by-step guide to writing a research paper, from idea to full manuscript. Excellent and easy to follow blog post by Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega.