PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: How to find papers when you do your literature review

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

When you start your literature review, you may feel intimidated by the quantity of work that you should go through. You may as well be worrying where to start in the first place.

In today's post, we look at different places where you can find (references to) papers that could be of your interest. Not all papers will eventually be equally important for your thesis. Depending on the article and its contents, you may simply browse the article for the main findings in less than 20 minutes, or you may sit down with the article for a week, pulling apart all its calculations and equations. But of course, you can't know how important a reference is until you find it and have a first look at it.

Here are nine different places where you can find (references to) papers that you may want to check:

1. Ask your supervisor where to start
If your supervisor gave you your thesis topic, he/she may already have a folder with information on the topic. Especially when you are hired on a funded project, your supervisor must have already been doing some preliminary work to write the proposal. Your first destination for your literature review is thus to ask your supervisor for references that can get you started.

2. Read up on the basics in a textbook
If you are new to a topic, there is no harm in reading a textbook. While a textbook may not have the depth and information of a journal article, it can provide you with the basic concepts that you need to understand to start reading in more detail. In addition to this information to get you started, textbooks also typically have extensive lists of references. You can check out these references and download the relevant articles.

3. References from the research proposal
If you're hired on a funded project, then the references to the research proposal are a good place to start familiarizing yourself with the work that supported the proposal in the first place. Download the references cited in the proposal so that you have all relevant background.

4. Find a good review paper on your topic
An excellent starting place for finding good references as well as getting a broad overview of your research topic, is by reading and analyzing a review paper on the topic. The references cited in the review paper can then be next up on your reading list.

5. Look for technical reports, theses, code documents etc
Don't limit yourself to research papers to find references to other papers. In technical reports and code documents on your topic, you can find important citations (as well information of practical value). When it comes to depth and extent of analytical work, nothing is as complete as a PhD thesis. Look for theses from students who worked on your topic, and see which references they cited.

6. Google Scholar
Google Scholar can help you find relevant articles by using the search function. In addition, you can subscribe to updates of colleagues in your field, so that you have the latest references accessible. Depending on the publisher of a journal paper, Google Scholar may also be faster in reporting a certain article in their database than other database, which can take up to 2 years to include an article.

7. Scopus
While Scopus has strong searching functions, and help with identifying the relative importance of a paper in its field with the published metrics, it may be slow in including articles (for my own publications, I have noticed it may take up to 2 years before an article is included).

8. ResearchGate
ResearchGate allows for "traditional" searching for publications, but it also allows you to do the following: 1) follow researchers in your field so you can see their updates, 2) follow research projects of other researchers to receive updates, and 3) interact by commenting on publications, asking questions, and sending direct messages.

9. References of papers
Just as for the list of references of a good review paper, the list of references of any paper you read can be a good starting point to find more papers to read. Make it a habit to carefully check the list of references and see which publications you have "missed" so far.

Presentation about Load Testing of Structures

The ACI USFQ Student Chapter organized a session with presentations last October. I gave a general introduction to the session, as well as an overview of load testing of structures. You can find my slides here:

Load testing of structures from Eva Lantsoght

Selecting your research topic is the first step for a successful career

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Moustafa Gabr with a guest post about selecting your research topic. Dr. Gabr is a recent PhD graduate in chemistry from University of Iowa. He completed his undergraduate studies in pharmaceutical sciences in Egypt. After earning his Master’s degree in medicinal chemistry in a joint program between Georgia State University and Mansoura University, he pursued a PhD in bioinorganic chemistry. Moustafa has more than 25 publications in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. His ORCID is 0000-0001-9074-3331. Moustafa has a strong passion for utilizing chemistry tools to answer long-existing questions in biology. His Twitter account @gabr2003

There is no question that choosing research advisor is the most important decision graduate students make during their doctoral training. Now you have chosen an advisor who you think can provide a mentoring style and healthy environment that would lead to your success in graduate school. The step that you should be considering at this point is the selection of your research project. Since you have joined this specific research group, you are already interested in more than one line of research pursued in this group. Most likely, your advisor has given general guidelines for your proposed project as well as recommendations for specific start points. Now it’s on you to pursue your own research path which will start with selecting a research topic.

Let your reading in literature guide you. The more you read about relevant research problems and the proposed solutions for them, the more you are capable of proposing alternative solutions to the existing research questions as well as identifying new questions. In your first year, try to focus on literature relevant to your current research. However, reading in other research areas will be very helpful starting from your second year in graduate school.
Scientific progress is incremental. However, that doesn’t mean that it lacks innovation. You can start with trying to use previous findings from your group or other groups to find a novel connection or a new research direction.

Be realistic. There are many interesting research projects, however, you need to choose a project that is feasible. As an early graduate student, you have a heavy course load and numerous skills to develop. The last thing you want to add at this point is a project with limited feasibility based on research costs, time needed and required facilities. With the level of experience of a first year graduate, this information can be obtained by communicating with senior graduate students and your advisor.

Consider your career goals. Indeed the research project you are choosing now will affect your progress in graduate school. Importantly, this research will set the stage for your postdoctoral experience as well. Research projects that address questions related to broad-ranging problems are most likely to attract opportunities for you in both academia and industry. A trending research topic at the moment might be outdated research in the near future. When you are selecting your research topic, keep in mind that you should select a project that has the potential to be a hot topic in the next few years when you are in the job market.

Collaborative versus independent research. A main objective for you as a junior researcher is to be an independent thinker and build expertise in your field. However, seeking what current or potential collaborators can add to your research might be a pivotal factor in furthering your career motives and objectives.

Now you have your research topic: Write and talk. The first thing you want to do is to write your primary research question in one sentence. Summarize your proposed approach in few sentences. Putting your idea into words will develop clearer vision which fosters more ideas. Talk to peers about your proposed research and see if they are convinced with the significance of the research problem. Pay attention to their questions which can guide you to reorganize your thoughts.

Stop Criteria for Flexure for Proof Load Testing of Reinforced Concrete Structures

My collaborators and myself recently published a paper titled "Stop Criteria for Flexure for Proof Load Testing of Reinforced Concrete Structures" in Frontiers in Built Environment - Bridge Engineering.

The work in this paper was sponsored by my Chancellor grant of 2016. Three years later, and I finally managed to wrap my head around the topic. Sometimes, we need to let our ideas stew for a while and revisit them every now and then until I have a good idea - this paper was such a situation.

The abstract is as follows:
Existing bridges with large uncertainties can be assessed with a proof load test. In a proof load test, a load representative of the factored live load is applied to the bridge at the critical position. If the bridge can carry this load without distress, the proof load test shows experimentally that the bridge fulfills the requirements of the code. Because large loads are applied during proof load tests, the structure or element that is tested needs to be carefully monitored during the test. The monitored structural responses are interpreted in terms of stop criteria. Existing stop criteria for flexure in reinforced concrete can be extended with theoretical considerations. These proposed stop criteria are then verified with experimental results: reinforced concrete beams failing in flexure and tested in the laboratory, a collapse test on an existing reinforced concrete slab bridge that reached flexural distress, and the pilot proof load tests that were carried out in the Netherlands and in which no distress was observed. The tests in which failure was obtained are used to evaluate the margin of safety provided by the proposed stop criteria. The available pilot proof load tests are analyzed to see if the proposed stop criteria are not overly conservative. The result of this comparison is that the stop criteria are never exceeded. Therefore, the proposed stop criteria can be used for proof load tests for the failure mode of bending moment in reinforced concrete structures.

Database of Shear Experiments on Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beams without Stirrups

I recently published a paper in Materials titled "Database of Shear Experiments on Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beams without Stirrups". This is my first paper as a single author, of one of my new research projects in Ecuador related to the shear capacity of steel fiber reinforced concrete.

The abstract is as follows:

Adding steel fibers to concrete improves the capacity in tension-driven failure modes. An example is the shear capacity in steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) beams with longitudinal reinforcement and without shear reinforcement. Since no mechanical models exist that can fully describe the behavior of SFRC beams without shear reinforcement failing in shear, a number of empirical equations have been suggested in the past. This paper compiles the existing empirical equations and code provisions for the prediction of the shear capacity of SFRC beams failing in shear as well as a database of 488 experiments reported in the literature. The experimental shear capacities from the database are then compared to the prediction equations. This comparison shows a large scatter on the ratio of experimental to predicted values. The practice of defining the tensile strength of SFRC based on different experiments internationally makes the comparison difficult. For design purposes, the code prediction methods based on the Eurocode shear expression provide reasonable results (with coefficients of variation on the ratio tested/predicted shear capacities of 27–29%). None of the currently available methods properly describe the behavior of SFRC beams failing in shear. As such, this work shows the need for studies that address the different shear-carrying mechanisms in SFRC and its crack kinematics.

What do you do when you receive a review invitation for a very poorly written abstract

As I recently received the invitation to review a paper of which the abstract was poorly written, I was pondering what I should do:

- I don't like slogging through a poorly written paper - it makes review so much harder.
- The topic is of my interest, maybe their work is good even though the writing is bad.
- They should get help on the writing first before submitting it, it's not my job to help them with this.
- The editor should have caught this.
- Maybe another reviewer will reject it, and maybe this is good work, and that would be a pity for the authors.


I usually end up taking the review and trying to provide constructive comments, but I don't like it (poorly written work is simply really hard to read and understand).

So, as I was wondering what others do in that case, I ran a poll on the topic.

You can find the poll and the discussion below:

Tools for planning your PhD: the PhD Planner

For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, you know that I think planning is an essential skill to get work done. I plan at different levels, and the tools that I use for this are my Google Calendar, ToDoist, and a BulletJournal style notebook (which doesn't follow exactly the BuJo system).

I set up my spreads in my notebook myself, but if you want a preprinted planner for academic success, there is the PhD Planner. I learned about this planner from its creator, who was kind enough to send me a free copy.

So what does this planner have:
- half-year spreads to help you plan long-term and note down important deadlines
- weekly spreads, which you can use for writing down priorities and appointments
- paper planning spreads, to help you get your manuscript out
- conference planning spreads, which facilitate all the actions you need to take care of before and after a conference
- a deep work tracker to help you get into the habit of making time for and doing deep work
- quarterly progress spreads, to identify your goals per quarter



I must say, that I haven't come around to using this planner (even though I've been dragging it to my office every day) because I already have a BuJo system in place that works very well for me - and as a faculty member, my responsibilities are a bit more distributed than for a PhD student. One thing I also noticed is that the paper on which the journal is printed is not very friendly for those of us who write with a fountain pen (for my BuJo, I use a Moleskine, and their paper is soft as butter for writing).

Nonetheless, if you don't have a fixed, well-working time management system in place, or you feel your system could need a refresh, I strongly recommend you check out and try out this planner.

This planner is a great tool for PhD students. As you may be getting ready now for the start of the academic year, do yourself the favor of ordering your planner now :)