American Chemical Society
Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques
— August 1998 —
Chemical Literature (Chem 184/284)
University of California at Santa Barbara
Term Project Information
As stated in the course description, Chem 184 has a term project in lieu of a final exam. Since this is primarily a course in practical techniques in literature searching, I feel this is a more appropriate was to see what you have learned and to give you practice in the techniques.
The project is to select a topic in chemistry and research it, using the resources which we will discuss in class. Remember that chemistry is the central science and you can look for topics in biochemistry and molecular biology, chemical physics, materials science, chemical engineering, medicinal chemistry, environmental chemistry, geochemistry and so on. You should try to select a topic which is of interest or use to you; it may be related to your research, or to something in which your advisor is interested, or which you’d like to pursue in your future career. Avoid trivial searches, like finding the papers of a particular author. Searches for the synthesis of a single compound are probably too trivial, but searches on a class of synthetic methods or syntheses of a class of compounds are appropriate. Also, think about and decide on the scope of your search.
- Is there a chronological limit to your search, e.g. 1980 to present, pre-1960, or all the literature?
- Are you interested in a comprehensive review of the literature, or just locating key references?
- Do you only need the journal literature on your topic, or are other forms (patents, dissertations, technical reports, etc.) relevant?
The nature of your subject, or the information you have on hand may dictate the scope of your search.
By the midway point in the course, I expect you to give me a brief description of your proposed topic. (See class schedule.) This should be no more than one or two paragraph description of what you have in mind. I will review these and make suggestions if I feel the topic is too broad, too narrow or otherwise inappropriate. If there is a problem, we’ll discuss the topic and try to modify it to where it's appropriate.
Some examples of recent, successful term projects:
- Methods for controlling eutrophication in lakes and lagoons
- Use of surfactants in designing zeolites
- Structure and mechanisms of the enzyme ACC oxidase
- Zinc and linoleic acid metabolism
- Fuel additives to enhance performance and/or lower emissions
- Captodative allenes in organic synthesis
It is acceptable for you to change topics later on if you find that there simply isn’t enough research out there on your topic. You should check with me before doing so, and obviously, the later in the quarter you change your topic, the less time you’ll have to complete your project.
In addition to the print, online, Internet and CD-ROM resources of the UCSB Library, you will be allowed $20 to $30 worth of commercial online searching (paid for by the Chem Dept.) This is the equivalent of about a half-hour search on CAS Online. If you wish to do more extensive online searching or use non-discounted files, you will have to pay for it, either personally, or by recharging to a faculty account number.
Your report on the project will be in two parts: an oral report to the class, and a written report. The oral reports will be given in the last week of class (or possibly the Thursday before, depending on the number of students in the class) during the regular class time. The written report will be due in my hands by the following Tuesday (see class schedule).
In your report, I am not primarily interested in the quantity of citations you locate. After all, many searches are aimed at determining that a given area has NOT been studied. What I am interested in is how you went about your search and why. I need to know:
- What sources did you used, and why did you select them?
- How did you approach the material?
- What worked, what didn’t, and why or why not?
- How did you build on the sources you identified—working backward to earlier work, forward to more recent studies or laterally to contemporary material.
If you’d like to see examples of the write-ups from previous students, I have a few on file that you can take a look at, with my comments to the author.
The ideal search is both thorough and economical (of your time and effort)—use every resource which is appropriate, but don’t waste time in those which are irrelevant or unpromising. A search for synthetic methods in Landolt-Bornstein is pointless; but one for some types of physical data which doesn’t check it is missing a good bet.
In many cases, it will turn out that the best single resource for your topic will be a search of the Chemical Abstracts Online files. However, don’t automatically assume this to be the case. Also, your CAS Online search may yield information (key papers, authors, references) which will lead you back to other sources to complete your search.
This page created by Chuck Huber (huber@library.ucsb.edu).