Literature Search Strategies for Interdisciplinary Researchers

There has been a surge in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in academia in recent years¹. The primary goal of bringing together knowledge from various disciplines is to address real-world or complex problems that a single disciplinary approach cannot solve; this allows one to gain new perspectives on problems and help develop curated solutions. While this is a boon for the world of science, it poses some challenges for those involved. For instance, conducting a literature search becomes a far more complex process for an interdisciplinary researcher.

The literature search challenge for interdisciplinary researchers

Literature search can be unnerving for most researchers, but the task of sifting through large volumes of published papers to find relevant research to read can be even more frustrating for interdisciplinary researchers. They must not only work harder but also work smarter to manage different research responsibilities. If this describes you, one tip to avoid being overwhelmed is to be aware that the usual literature search approaches may not work for you, so change your approach.

Smart literature search strategies for interdisciplinary researchers

Here are some easy tips to help optimize the literature search strategy for those whose work spans multiple research disciplines.

Brush up on the basics

To learn about any new area, you must first become acquainted with the terminologies and discipline-specific jargon in that field. If the subject area is far beyond your area of expertise, it is recommended that you first read gray literature to gain a better understanding of the topic. Gray literature includes any reports (annual, technical, research), whitepapers, commercial reports, and policy papers produced outside of traditional academic publishing channels. Though not peer-reviewed, these documents are a valuable and accessible source of information and, in some cases, the only source available for emerging research and global trends².

Learn as you collaborate with experts

Multidisciplinary research is loosely defined as collaborative research among researchers from various disciplines. So, what better way than to learn from your peers? Ideally, you should first read about the concepts and gain a background before reaching out to researchers working in the domains you need to understand. They can recommend valuable resources and personal notes to get you started, which will help you learn and collaborate better, with a chance to gain more hands-on experience. You could also discuss your perspective on concepts and solve any queries by engaging more frequently with these experts.

Explore different mediums of content

Newer concepts from various domains may be challenging to grasp at first, but researchers can use different, more visual mediums to their advantage. There are a plethora of easy-to-understand pictures, infographics, charts, diagrams, videos, presentations, and study materials uploaded by experts for beginners. Attending seminars, online-forum discussions (e.g., Reddit Science, TheNakedScientist, etc.), conferences, and presentations can also be a good place to start.

Use keywords to fine-tune your online literature search

Optimizing your online searches using specialist and generalist search engines is critical to save time on your literature search. Make a comprehensive list of targeted keywords for your online search. Additionally, jot down synonyms and alternative words for each listed keyword³.

To improve the outcome of the literature search query, researchers can opt for Boolean operators; “AND” or “NOT”, which can reduce the noise and fetch specific results, and “OR”, which ensures nothing relevant is missed. Pay close attention when using abbreviations (as search keywords), as different words have varied meanings in other disciplines. Use both American and British versions of your targeted keywords to maximize the search output. Choose backward and forward referencing to find important references through retrieved articles; citation analysis tools can be used to better manage and organize the citations (e.g., Citation Gecko). Use reference managers to keep track of relevant literature across multiple disciplines.

Let the relevant research find you

Subscribing to RSS feeds from your favorite websites and journals of interest is one way to stay on top of your game. You can set up Google alerts to receive notifications about new research on relevant topics. Sign up for interdisciplinary journals’ table of contents (TOCs), keyword alerts, or citation alerts.

Popular literature search resources for researchers

There are a few databases and smart tools that allow multidisciplinary researchers to conduct literature searches; it is critical to use more than one database to ensure you get all relevant literature. This is especially important for multidisciplinary research because each database has different data retrieval sources and is uniquely indexed. Some of them will be addressed here:

1. Scopus is a well-known multidisciplinary database that contains the most abstracts and citations of peer-reviewed journals. It has interesting search tools, such as a tool to find the most highly cited article in a journal and author affiliations and countries, which can help multidisciplinary researchers locate active researchers in a specific domain and identify the most relevant literature.
2. Another valuable resource is Dogpile, a metasearch engine that fetches information from multiple search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex.
3. The Web of Science is a famous multidisciplinary database containing bibliographic citations from various scientific, social science, and medical journals. The Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Science and Technical Edition) allows researchers to access literature published at conferences, symposia, colloquia, seminars, conventions, and workshops across the globe.
4. Google Scholar is an online search engine that provides quick access to international peer-reviewed papers, books, articles, and abstracts⁴.
5. R Discovery is a smart AI-powered research app that helps researchers simplify literature searches by creating a personalized reading feed. By recommending the latest, most relevant research papers on your chosen topics of interest every day, it saves you hours spent on searching for research. It has some other exciting features, such as easy bookmarking, alerts on newly published articles, syncing with reference managers, and a growing repository of journal articles, open-access papers, preprints, and more. The best part is it has smart summaries that allow you to skim the key highlights of the paper and quickly decide if it is relevant enough to spend time reading the entire article.

Befriend new-age AI-based technologies

Many of the complexities inherent in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research searches can be addressed by AI-based apps and software. Smart apps like R Discovery understand and tweak their article recommendations based on your changing reading interests. Having a smart research reading library at your fingertips saves time, simplifies your literature search, and optimizes research reading, especially if you are an interdisciplinary researcher. We hope these tips and recommendations helped you kick-start and simplify the literature search journey so you can enjoy reading research!

References:

1. Editage Insights. ‘How to Stay Updated as an Interdisciplinary Researcher’ (August 24, 2021). https://www.editage.com/insights/how-to-stay-updated-as-an-interdisciplinary-researcher.
2. ‘Gray Literature – an Overview | Science Direct Topics’. Accessed November 12, 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/gray-literature.
3. Editage Insights. ‘Tips for Effective Literature Searching and Keeping up with New Publications’ (November 4, 2013). https://www.editage.com/insights/tips-for-effective-literature-searching-and-keeping-up-with-new-publications.
4. Matthews, D. ‘Drowning in the Literature? These Smart Software Tools Can Help’. Nature 597, no. 7874 (September 1, 2021): 141–42. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02346-4.