Tools for Literature Review

Prepared by Kathleen Liston, October 12, 2006

Creativity, diligence, inquisitiveness, and patience….

Software tools:

  • EndNote
  • Microsoft Word
  • Mind Map software
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Web Browser

Why Endnote?

  • Stores all references
  • Can adjust format styles per journal, conference, or other publication requirements
  • Add links to papers for better management
  • Add keywords, notes for searching and organizing literature review

How to Start?

  • Set up a folder for your research papers.
  • At first you can store all papers in one directory, but as you develop your POD structure and different “buckets” of research then you will want to create sub-folders
  • Develop a consistent naming scheme for papers:
  • Paper title
  • Author-Year
  • Author-Title
  • Endnote number
  • Start online:

Sites for Search

Web Site / Good for… / Not…
google.scholar.com / Quickly highlighting popular and seminal research
Lists # of citations – good indicator of importance of paper / Older papers are only found once you know the author, title
/ Comprehensive search across websites / Online resources publicly available
/ Finding specific reference by author or book title–especially books
Finding a journal / General search
/ Great for citing definitions or clarifying common terms
/ Excellent source for general description of theories, models, terms with references to other sources / Referencable material

(Socrotes Electronic Journals) / Finding a journal online site
/ Finding references by authors / Does not cover all domains
/ If you know general database you want to look in / General, intro research
/ Statistics of U.S.
/ Online books in areas of sociology, education, group research
Great tools to bookmark, highlight, and cite books / Engineering in general
/ Librarian’s internet index
/ Grass-roots bookmarking

AEC Specific Sites – University and Government, Non-Profit

These are general purpose web sites which will hopefully lead you to specific websites that provide more resources. Here are some common engineering sources that are not commonly found through these:

Organization / Web Site / Good for…
CIFE /
NIST / / Government published reports
Lean Construction /
IAI, Industry Alliance for Interoperability / / documentation for IFC
Engineering News Record / / search for articles, statistics, surveys
AIA, American Institute of Architects /
AGC, Association of General Contractors /
DBIA, Design-Build Institute / / Structural Engineering
Georgia Tech /
Univ. of Illinois /
Univ. of California, Berkeley /

AEC Magazines, Commercial Sites

Engineering News Record / / search for articles, statistics, surveys
AEC Magazine /
AECbytes /

Methods to capture references

  • Start with outline
  • Insert notes, references within outline and expand as needed
  • Use tables to structure notes
  • Select criteria, ideas
  • As you read papers you will identify additional references and sources to look. References at the end of papers are your best source.
  • Go to specific university or institution web sites. Many papers and reports can be found at specific schools.
  • Go to researcher’s home page. I’ve found old, out-dated papers not available online through some academics.
  • Email the researcher. I’ve also emailed the researcher and one fedexed a hard-copy of the paper.

Miscellaneous Notes:

Stanford’s SU LAIR has a great intro page for sources for hard to find documents:

  • PhD Thesis, working papers, reports.
  • There is a searchable thesis database found through the Stanford site. My experience is it’s best to go the university and department site or email the researcher directly
  • Using PDF:
  • You can highlight, add bookmarks, search. Get to learn Adobe Acrobat – very useful tool