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WRI 501: Reading and Writing about the Scientific Literature

This guide will assist gradute students in Engineering, Science and related fields to identify tools and resources for researching the literature in the field.

Facts, reviews and overviews

To familiarize yourself with the broader landscape of a research field, especially if your work will have applications in other disciplines, go to the basics:

  • Annual Reviews - Series of authoritative, analytic reviews in 33 focused disciplines within the Biomedical, Physical, and Social Sciences. Useful for researching engineering applications in physical sciences.
  • Collection of the latest leading technical and engineering reference books
  • CRCnetBase - full text of scientific and engineering handbooks published by CRC Press.Topics covered include Biomedical Science, Chemistry, Clean Technology, Economics, Environmental Science, Geosciences, Material Science, Math, Physics.
  • O'Reilly Collection of information technology and programming books, mostly published by O'Reilly which allows searching for code examples and specific technical information.
  • Synthesis and Colloquium Digital Library  (Morgan & Claypool) - Collection of lectures that synthesize various research or development topics in biomedical engineering, communications, artificial intelligence, computer science, and electrical engineering (Synthesis Series) and life sciences (Colloquium Series).
  • Encyclopedias - Access Science and Access Engineering are two examples of many online encyclopedias available. To locate encyclopedias in other fields, search the main catalog or books+ for "encyclopedia AND (subject area)" e.g. encyclopedia AND chemistry

Data and Statistics