The following may be used to guide you in searching literature existing at various stages of scientific communication:
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Publication Cycle |
Access Points
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Research and develop idea |
Unpublished Documents *: lab notebooks, personal correspondence, graphs, charts, grant proposals |
Limited access Current Grey Literature Report RePORTER (Database of NIH funded research projects) |
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Present preliminary findings |
Preliminary Reports: letters to the editor or journals, brief (short) communication submitted to a primary journal |
PubMed (limiting search results to Letter under Limits) ISI Web of Science (Science Citation Index) |
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Patent Specifications: invention (e.g., diagnostic/surgical tool, new drug) described in a patent specification |
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Report research |
Conference Literature: preprints, conference proceedings |
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Research Reports: master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, interim or technical reports |
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center PubMed (limiting search results to Technical Report under Limits) Professional association Web sites |
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Publish research |
Research Paper (scholarly journal articles): research papers published in peer-review/referred journals |
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (selecting the Advanced search mode to restrict search by database) CINAHL (nursing, non-pharmaceutial, patient- and family-centered information) APA Psycinfo (psychology and psychiatry) ISI Web of Science (Science Citation Index) |
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Popularize research findings |
Newspapers, popular magazines, TV news reports, web sites |
PubMed Media outlets The Internet |
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Compact and repackage biomedical information |
Reviews, systematic reviews, guidelines, textbooks, handbooks, yearbooks, encyclopedias |
Note: Unpublished documents, also called "grey literature", because it is “shadow-like”, difficult to locate, with limited Access.