Searching for academic literature

The different types of academic literature
The different stages of a literature search

Like many other things, becoming good at searching requires practice. But why is searching so important?

  • The quality of your research: You have to know the field and what has been done already, to understand what is interesting, relevant and “new”.
  • Understanding your own findings: It is impossible to understand your own findings without seeing them in the context of other studies within similar subjects and fields.
  • If your findings differ from other studies: How is your project different from these other studies? National context? Selection? Theoretical perspective?
  • It must be clear what kind of hypothesis you are starting from, and your work must be verifiable by others.
  • You have to know what research is, and you should know the different types of academic literature.

Oria

Oria is the library catalogue, where you can search for printed and electronic resources the VUC library has access to. This includes physical books, e-books, journal articles, PhD dissertations, Master’s theses, etc. You can choose between simple and advanced search. Advanced search gives more search possibilities than a simple search. From the result list, you can limit your search in the left-hand menu, for example choosing peer reviewed journals or year of publication. You can also include materials from other Norwegian academic libraries to find material that we do not have at the VUC library. You can order these by logging in with your Feide-ID in Oria. When you are logged in, you will also be able to save your searches for later use.

Subject databases

By searching in specific databases, you will be able to search with greater precision within your subject area than in Oria. You can get an overview of the different databases we have access to in the databases and subject areas pages. How you search will vary from database to database, and most of the databases have their own help pages. If you know how the advanced search in Oria works, you will also be able to use most of the other databases.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is Google’s search engine for academic literature (articles, books, reports, and dissertations). It also includes documents from the open archives of Norwegian and foreign universities and research institutions. Google Scholar does not replace the subject databases but can be a good place to start your literature search. From the result list in Google Scholar, you can also click on “Cited by” to find other articles or documents that have cited the relevant source. Another alternative is to click on “Related articles” to find articles with similar subjects.

Google

Why not just use Google? You can certainly google something you want to know more about before you find academic sources, but you have to be source critical and you can’t believe everything you find there.
Worth knowing about Google:

  • Google does not find all the articles that exist in Oria and the subject databases.
  •  It is difficult to find relevant academic literature.

Alternative search strategies

  • Check the bibliography/reference list in books and articles.
  • Look up central researchers in the field and see what they have published.