Research Guides: Surgical Illustration and Media: Welcome

Welcome

This page will guide you through research strategies and available resources for your literature review for Surgical Illustration and Media.

There are two more pages on this guide for image and video resources, and resources for individual surgical disciplines, which are accessible in the tabs on your left (or above, if on a mobile device).

Literature Reviews

Remember that a literature review must:

1. Be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
2. Synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known.
3. Identify specific subject areas, controversies, or positions in the literature.
4. Formulate questions that need further research.

For more information on writing literature reviews, see this helpful guide:

Purdue OWL- Literature Reviews

Top Database Search Tips

Your search strategies will depend partly on the research tools you use. Search engines like Google tend to be less picky about your terms. However, Google search results also usually require more careful evaluation of source credibility, since it includes a larger number of sources from a wider range of places.

Library databases allow for advanced searching and include high-quality content. They often, however, are more challenging to search than Google. These database search tips will help:

Limit the number of search terms that you use.
Use key words that best express your topic. Avoid non-essential terms like "the" and "of."
Try multiple searches. Experiment with related terms, including broader or narrower terms.
Explore the database's Advanced Search options.
On the search results page look for ways to refine your search.

Scholarly Health Sciences and Medicine Databases

There are several library databases that are specifically for medical and health sciences research:

AccessSurgery This link opens in a new window
Surgery e-book collection.
Access to more than 15 ebooks, including Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery and Current Diagnosis and Treatment: Surgery. Access Surgery is an integrated online resource that includes: surgical videos, surgical animations, surgical atlas, board review, and quick reference. (Mobile Compatible)
Biological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Scholarly journal articles in life science and biomedical research.
A complete collection of bibliographic references covering life science and biomedical research literature published from journals internationally. This database contains records from as far back as 1969. (Ebsco)
ClinicalKey This link opens in a new window
Online collection of clinical resources published by Elsevier in medicine and surgery.
Clinical Key draws from the large collection of clinical resources published by Elsevier covering every medical and surgical specialty. It includes journals, books, practice guidelines, patient education, drug information and MEDLINE citations and abstracts from PubMed, as well as multimedia. Clinical Key replaces MD Consult and First Consult which have been discontinued by Elsevier.
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
Results of medical research studies for use in evidence-based medicine.
The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases that contains high-quality evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. It includes reliable evidence from Cochrane and other systematic reviews, clinical trials, and more. Cochrane reviews bring you the combined results of the world's best medical research studies, and are recognized as the gold standard in evidence-based health care. The Cochrane Library can be searched by keyword, subject, or author.
MEDLINE (Ovid) This link opens in a new window
The National Library of Medicine database of biomedical literature, on the Ovid platform.
Produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the MEDLINE database is recognized as a source for bibliographic and abstract coverage of biomedical literature. MEDLINE provides information from the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, as well as coverage in the areas of allied health, biological and physical sciences, humanities and information science as they relate to medicine and health care, communication disorders, population biology, and reproductive biology.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index to the biomedical literature.
PubMed comprises more than 27 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

CMSRU Surgery E-Books

If you need to search resources in the libraries beyond a specific database listed above, try searching in Library Search through the box below.

Surgery Journals

Sometimes its easier to search the journals website for your article then once you have the title, and then search for the title of the article in Library Search or in PubMed (links above).

Additional Resources

Google and Google Scholar Search Tips
CMSRU Surgery Library Guide
Describes resources available for surgery through Rowan Libraries

Surgical Illustration and Media

Subject Librarian