2.4 Gathering of scientific information

Read the text paying attention to the tools recommended for collecting scientific information. Use the word list below for memorizing the appropriate vocabulary. Be ready to discuss the world’s most trusted information services covering the leading scholarly literature.

Thanks to the Internet and Web Search much information is within easy reach, and researchers can gather firsthand information not only from papers and books. The number of information services on the web is overwhelming, and their covering of sources is an excellent information collection tool. Such web service as Google is the first choice for saving time in the preparation of projects, papers and thesis. It is the best tool for quick web searching due to its clean and user-friendly interface.

Google provides researchers with immediate access to the papers it finds. It allows you to find all papers that contain certain words and gives a good ordering and presentation of results. Dogpile is a meta-search engine with a slogan “All the best search engines piled into one” as it covers a larger number of pages combining the results from several existing search engines including Yahoo, Google and MSN. Dogpile is very useful for looking something very specific information, which is hard to find as it has links to a number of more specialized databases.

To expand the access, awareness and appreciation of scientific sources researches use global citation navigation provided by Web of Science. In the scientific world, Web of Science is the most authoritative database, especially for its citation count for papers and authors. It does not give direct access to the papers and ignores the content, but can only search article titles and keywords to deliver the most relevant and complete search results. For further refining the obtained results, researches can use embedded analysis tools, which help, understand the worldwide impact of the sources and authors, and make new discoveries across disciplines and regions. Ensuring the most trusted citation index Web of Science searches and discovers the world’s most impactful scholarly journals and scientific research.

Elsevier Science Publishing Company is a world-leading provider of information. It enhances the performance of science and technology professionals. Scirus, set up by Elsevier publishers, is more comprehensive and user-friendly than Web of Science, and claims to be the most comprehensive scientific search engine.

Many libraries within the University network have established agreements for "interlibrary lending". This means that if the book is not available at one of the libraries, you can order it via the database and collect it at your University library after a short waiting period provided you pay a small fee.

The largest booksellers, such as Amazon due to very extensive catalogues also allow search of book content. Some databases include open-access scientific journals and allow their rapid identification to browse relevant articles from or to publish your research in.

When it is necessary to search various websites for relevant information or to refer, Zotero is an extremely useful "plug-in" for the free web browser Firefox. It can extract bibliographical data from the important publication sites, such as Google Scholar, Web of Science and Amazon. OneLook can search general and specialized dictionaries for rare technical terms or the subtleties of the different meanings that do not appear in common dictionaries. Google Translate is the best of translation engines that provides translation of webpages. Anyway, if you want to use them, you will still have quite some work to manually "clean up" the translations.

The Russian Science Citation Index on Web of Science in collaboration with the Scientific Electronic Library (eLibrary.RU) covers many fields including engineering and material science. It enables discovery of new insights from Russian publications searching, tracking and measuring Russian research.

Table 6 Word List

№	Words and word combinations	Translation
1.	authoritative database	заслуживающая доверия база данных
2.	be within easy reach	быть легко доступным
3.	free web browser	бесплатный веб-браузер
4.	extract bibliographical data	получать библиографию
5.	gather firsthand information	получать информацию из первых рук
6.	immediate access	немедленный доступ
7.	interlibrary lending	межбиблиотечный абонемент
8.	make a list of references	составлять библиографию
9.	open-access scientific journals	научные журналы открытого доступа
10.	plug-in	«подключатель»
11.	refine the obtained results	обработка полученных данных
12.	tracking	отслеживание данных
13.	the most comprehensive scientific search engine.	самая полная поисковая система
14.	the most trusted citation index	самый надёжный индекс цитирования
15.	user-friendly interface	удобный интерфейс
16.	the most impactful scholarly journals	самые цитируемые научные журналы
17.	subtleties	тонкие смысловые различия
18.	web search	поиск в интернете

Exercise 2.4.1

Answer the following questions

1. Can you name the journals included into Russian Science Citation Index?

2. What information services are familiar to you?

3. What search engines can provide links to a number of more specialized databases?

4. What information service do researchers use to expand the access to global citation navigation?

5. Do you use information provided by Elsevier Science Publishing Company?

6. What is "interlibrary lending"?

Exercise 2.4.2

Brush up your knowledge of English Grammar and keep in mind that in traditional approaches to grammar “The -ing form” is a general term for words called either 'gerund' or 'present participle'. Gerunds are used as nouns with functions of the subject of a verb, the object of a verb, a predicate nominative or complement, or the object of a preposition. Determine the gerund functions in the following sentences:

1. Researching was my daily occupation while working in the laboratory.

2. We liked discussing the obtained results and publishing them in peer-reviewed journals.

3. Our only aim was observing and not interpreting.

4. I was fond of conducting experiments and creating models.

5. We were prevented from getting inaccurate results by using the suggested method.

6. Her occupation was refining on our method, treating some aspects of our research in the report and presenting our results at conferences.

7. They have improved their skills in writing scientific papers and reports.

Part III. Writing a scientific paper

Scientific papers, written in a specific format, provide a method for scientists to communicate with other scientists about the results of their research. Using a standard format the author must compile years of his scientific progress into a short review article presenting his research in an orderly and logical manner. It is not an easy task and the author is recommended to get feedback from his colleagues, lab mates and mentor. They can interpret his studies in new ways he had not thought of. Developing the skills of scientific writing each postgraduate student should know the necessary content of each article section and follow the style guide. He must give plenty of time discussing his work with peers, reading literature extensively and learning to be accurate yet consistent with scientific facts or implications of the discoveries. This will definitely prevent inaccuracies.