Literature Reviews in the Social Sciences

What you need to know:

• the basic vocabulary surrounding your topic (including any subject-specific jargon, synonyms, alternative phrases, etc.)
• the difference between keyword and subject searching
• how to use Boolean operators
• how to use truncation
• the different ways of sorting and limiting your results

What you will learn & need to take note of in the course of searching:

• the best subject headings/keywords
• prominent authors
• prominent journals
• trends

Try to avoid:  

• spending too much time on the 'newest' articles--a lot of databases put the newest articles first.  Don't forget the older stuff, it can be very relevant and influential!
• getting sidetracked into articles that are only tangentially related to your field of study.  

Jump for joy!  And then...

• Find the subject headings--you can use these in new keyword or subject heading searches to find similar articles
• Check the bibliography--see what sources they used, and then go find them yourself using either the catalog (for books & book chapters) or the Journals page (search for the journal titles to see if we have access)
• Find the article in Web of Science, and look to see who has cited that article--this might give you ideas for how the article can be interpreted, and also an idea of its' influence (just don't expect a lot of citations for new articles).  You can do this in Google Scholar, too.