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Useful Tips to Keep on Top of New Literature

Posted in: Taming the Literature
A young woman sitting on the floor of a library aisle surrounded by books and coffee and with an open book balanced on her head to represent how to keep on top of new literature

How do you keep on top of new literature in the increasingly busy world of scientific research?

We all know literature searching is a huge task for scientists, and it’s a gut-wrenching feeling to come across a paper that affects your work.

It’s even worse when it turns out that paper is weeks or even months old.

Perhaps finding that paper earlier would have saved you time with your experiments or changed the direction of your project. Making sure you keep on top of new literature is crucial if you’re looking to be successful in the lab.

It used to be (long before my time) that you had to stroll down to the library once a week to browse through the latest “Current Contents” to keep up to date with current publications.

Nowadays, you can search for the latest articles from the comfort of your own desk, which saves you a lot of time.

But making sure you keep on top of new literature can still be a time-consuming process, so we’ve compiled a heap of hints and tips to help you out. Basically, you need to start making technology work for you!

The Best Tools to Keep on Top of New Literature

PubMed and Google Scholar

When starting a new project you’ll need to get up to date with the relevant literature. There are many databases that you can search to find those important papers, including Google Scholar and PubMed.

Creating a good search is something of an art form—be too specific and you might miss a lot of relevant papers, be too vague and you are faced with an ocean of articles to wade through.

Knowing how to search for the relevant literature efficiently can save you a lot of time, so check out another Bitesize Bio article for info on how to optimize your PubMed searches.

eTOCs

If you find yourself reading and searching the same journals, you should consider signing up for electronic alerts from these journals.

Many journals offer various services, from notifying you that a new issue is online to e-mailing you the electronic Table of Contents (eTOCs) of each issue as it is published.

Sign up to the top journals to stay in touch with the biggest developments or keep up to date with your field through the more specialized journals.

To subscribe, just look out for links such as “Alerts” on journal websites; these links are normally at the top of web pages, so they should be easy to find.

RSS

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is a web feed that distributes content in a standardized form. Using an RSS feed means you don’t need to visit a particular website to browse the latest content, as you can access it all in the feed itself.

RSS feeds are similar to eTOCs but you will need an RSS reader to turn the RSS text file into something that you can easily browse.

There are a number of free RSS readers out there, as well as paid-for subscription services, which often have additional functionality.

Popular readers include Feedly and The Old Reader, but you’ll need to do some research to find the one that works best for you.

Feedly works with iOS and Android and will search the likes of journals, newsletters, and Twitter once you have set up your preferences.

The Old Reader uses RSS rather than an algorithm, and if you sign up for a premium account, your feed will be updated more regularly.

Some websites include a direct RSS link, so you just need to copy the link, create a new feed in your RSS reader program, and add the URL.

Whenever a new article is published matching your search criteria, your RSS feed will be updated.

Learn how to set up RSS feeds of PubMed searches with this Bitesize Bio article.

It’s worth noting that RSS feeds aren’t as popular as they once were, but they’re still really useful for ensuring that you don’t miss any new content on a particular site, especially if you’re not a social media user. Definitely a tool to keep in your toolbox to help you keep on top of new literature.

Twitter

Twitter is now a well-established tool for keeping up with scientific innovations, and most journals now tweet their articles.

Follow the journals that you read the most to ensure you keep up to date with new articles as they are published.

Keeping track of articles in this way will also allow you to see what other people are reading and their thoughts on the latest research.

Many labs also tweet their research, so look out for and follow labs that are big in your field.

If you don’t currently tweet about your own research or that of others, check out our article to learn how it might be beneficial to start.

CiteULike

CiteULike is an online reference manager, which is now owned by Springer. It allows you to store and manage your academic references, extract bibliographic references, and share resources with others.

It will also now make article recommendations based on your activity. For more on reference managers, check out our reference manager overview article, which lists the key features of the most popular programs.

Your Labmates and Colleagues

Who better to keep you in the loop of the latest research than the people you work with, who probably know almost as much about your topic as you do (if not more depending on how close your projects are).

I was really lucky as I did my graduate work in a friendly and helpful lab, and I often came back to my desk to find useful and relevant articles printed off for me.

Sharing articles with your labmates and colleagues has never been simpler (and more tree-friendly) with several handy programs and applications (see CiteULike above, for example!) that enable you to share references with a single click.

These are my top tips for keeping up with the literature; what methods do you use to keep on top of new literature?

For more tips on keeping track of the scientific literature, head over to the Bitesize Bio Managing the Scientific Literature Hub.

Originally published May 29, 2013. Reviewed and updated October 2021.

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3 Comments

  1. Kurt Lager on May 30, 2013 at 4:59 am

    It’s no point in promoting Google Reader since it will close within one month! I switched to RSSOwl instead.



  2. PombeGeek on May 29, 2013 at 4:32 pm

    Just FYI – Google Reader is no longer being supported and is slated to be shuttered this summer. There are many good alternatives that retain essentially the same look and feel, as well as feature set. My preference is for Feedly (I am not affiliated with them in any way).



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