General Resources for Literature Searches and Reviews

1. Introduction

This book contains links, guides and activities to help you make the best use of the library and online resources available to you.

For more information on the library visit the library website and watch our Introduction to the libraries video

For up to date library news and information follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook

Slides from the practical session can be seen here

2. Accessing library resources

To find out what we have in the library, whether it's books, journals or databases, search the library catalogue.

To search for full text articles available at Queen Mary use our Articles Search.

Our Guide to library search tools will give you more information on using these tools.

To find out how to access e-resources off campus have a look at our E-resources guide or watch our brief video.

For subject specific information, including links to databases and useful websites, visit our medicine subject pages.

3. Useful web pages

There are some good healthcare specific search engines where you can find good quality information on the web. 

• MedlinePlus
• Evidence Search
• TRIP

Other good sources of public / international health information:

• Solutions for Public Health
• Department of Health
• World Health Organisation

4. Databases

Medline, through PubMed, is the biggest biomedical database and a good place to start your search.  Have a go at searching PubMed using the PubMed activity.

The Cochrane Library is a great resource for Evidence Based Medicine.  Cochrane reviews are high quality, pre-appraised systematic reviews and they're freely available full text.

Scopus and Web of Science have a broader scope than PubMed.  They are good databases to search if you want to find more material or material that's not specifically medical.  Work in pairs, one try the Web of Science activity and the other the Scopus activity. 

Here are our guides to the useful databases for future reference:

• Guide to PubMed  
• Guide to Web of Science  
• Guide to the Cochrane Library  
• Guide to Scopus

5. Referencing

The video below explains the principles behind referencing and how to avoid plagiarism.

For further help with referencing see our Guide to referencing or visit the referencing pages of the library website.

If you want to make referencing really easy then try using EndNote.

6. EndNote

EndNote is a bibliographic reference management tool.  It allows you to:

• Easily capture references from books, articles and webpages
• Organise and share references
• Insert citations and create bibliographies in Microsoft Word

For further help with EndNote see our guide to EndNote or watch our bite-sized video demos:

Introduction to EndNote

Getting references in

Organising references

Using Cite While You Write