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| − | =How can I find out what scientists already know about a particular astronomy topic or object? =
| + | How can you find out what scientists already know about a particular astronomy topic or object? |
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| − | '''Searching the literature is an essential part of doing research.''' | + | '''Searching the literature is an essential part of doing research. Reading the literature is different than reading a newspaper article.''' |
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| − | Nearly all the astronomical literature, from the 1800s through this morning, is online at
| + | =Most coherent, developed, tested materials= |
| − | [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/ ADS] (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/). From anywhere, you can search via the ADS form, and read abstracts and old papers. However, because the journals want you to pay for access to recent articles, you will only be able to read recent papers from journals when you're connecting from a university internet domain such as caltech.edu (your local public library might also have access.. but also see below for a workaround!). ADS will cough up abstracts to refereed journal articles, full articles from conference proceedings, abstracts from conferences without conference proceedings, and proposals. NB: that list is from most useful to least useful. '''ADS is organized by articles'' -- that is, you need to search by strings to find articles.
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| − | [http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-fid SIMBAD] (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-fid) is a different database, with different strengths, weaknesses, and tools than ADS. Try searching there too; you will probably find different information than at ADS. Note that there are links between the two databases, such that you can move between them and take advantage of both resources. (Note too that SIMBAD is based in France, and thus might be down for maintenance during their evening hours -- which is our middle of the day.) '''SIMBAD is organized by objects'' -- that is, you can put in a position on the sky (or a name) and get all the papers that they have tagged as relevant to that object. | + | [https://youtu.be/xy0a2ablSCs Movie (25:35) on basics of astronomical literature searching] (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2022) -- newly updated!! |
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| − | Note that SIMBAD tabulates data, but is notoriously unreliable at doing so. Don't believe any Vmags, types, or classifications of objects you find as part of their 'basic data.' SIMBAD provides links back to articles (and the data tables therein), though, which is ''far'' more useful. In SIMBAD, you can search by position, so you can find out, e.g., what other named objects are near to a region you care about. There may be other useful papers calling objects near your targeted region by those other names, rather than the name you're using.
| + | [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbhT9wqdR5E Movie (21:54) on basics of astronomical literature searching] (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016) 2nd half particularly out of date, sorry. |
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| − | [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Negz3lERk6I Screencapture tutorial] on literature searching, with particular emphasis on SIMBAD-based searching, designed for the 2012 C-WAYS team, but may be of some general benefit. | + | [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClJod4___c Movie (15:57) on how to read scientific literature] (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016) |
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| − | = Questions to think about and things to try with literature searching= | + | [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1G5g6oektA Movie (17:38) on a case study on how to read a scientific paper] with a goal of getting data out. It was for one of my IC417 teams, so it uses a paper relevant to IC417. (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016) |
| − | Try these examples below to be sure you understand how to use this form. All of these are relevant to the IC 2118 project, but similar searches can be done for any topic.
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| − | * Find all papers by Luisa Rebull, or another astronomer friend. Which are refereed, and which are conference proceedings?
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| − | * Find all papers involving a target of choice, say, IC 2118. What is the most recent one?
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| − | * Find all the previously known objects in a region of your choice, say IC 2118 (probably easiest to do in SIMBAD). Experiment with searching by name and searching by position. Do you get different results for your object of choice?
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| − | * Find the paper with the following reference: Rebull et al., 2008, ApJ, 681, 1484
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| − | * How many papers have Luisa Rebull, Varoujan Gorjian, or any other mentor scientist you know published? How many refereed articles has he or she published?
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| − | = More advanced literature searching =
| + | '''[[Important note about publications]]''' (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2020) |
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| − | While all astronomy journals appear electronically as well in hard copy, most astronomers find that waiting for the hard-copy or even electronic journals takes too long. "[http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/astro-ph astro-ph]" is the astronomical component of a preprint service on which astronomers post their manuscripts. (There are other components for, e.g., high-energy physics or mathematics.) Some people post their articles as soon as they submit them; others wait until they are accepted to the journal before posting. Some people even solely post to astro-ph, and the article never appears in a journal or conference proceeding. The information about whether or not the article is accepted for publication is supposed to appear in the information posted to astro-ph.
| + | [[Literature: Observation and Inference]] by David Strasburger (NITARP alum) |
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| − | The articles as they appear on astro-ph are not necessarily formatted just like the journal, and there is professional editing that (usually) gets done in addition to the typesetting before it appears in the journal, but the content is all there. Sometimes the figures get degraded in resolution for astro-ph too, but again, all the text content is there.
| + | =Somewhat less coherent (or less standalone) materials= |
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| − | ADS will let you search astro-ph as well as the journals, and also cross-references it. So, if you search on a relatively recent article, and you don't have access to the full journal through your school or library, look near the top of the page that ADS returns. There may very well be a link to "arXiv e-print (arXiv:astro-phxx/xxxx)", which will take you directly to the astro-ph posting for that article. This is a nice way to get access to the information without requiring a journal subscription! Welcome to academic freedom of information transfer. :)
| + | [https://nitarp.ipac.caltech.edu/ckeditor_assets/attachments/175/aasoverview.pdf?1578207631 "How to read scientific posters" portion of this NITARP kick-off workshop talk] (by Dr. Varoujan Gorjian; this version from the AAS workshop 2020) |
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| | + | [[Literature searching worksheet]] (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, circa 2009 but updated slightly) |
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| − | = More advanced questions to think about and things to try with literature searching= | + | =Other sources of interest= |
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| − | * Find a recent paper that uses IRAC and/or MIPS data to study a star forming region in our Galaxy.
| + | [https://astrobites.org/ Astrobites] is an AAS-supported site that is run by grad students. Every day, they pick at least one article from arXiv and summarize what the article is discussing, including relevant background if relevant. This is a great way for anyone (you, your students) to keep current on astronomical literature. They tend to pick important articles, so even if you don't want to read their summaries of the journal articles, you can take their paper suggestions and read the papers completely on your own. There are also summaries of really important papers from the past, as well as guides for students on careers and graduate school, and basics about telescopes, etc. There are even [https://astrobites.org/2017/06/11/astrobites-lesson-plans/ materials on using Astrobites in classes]; also see [https://bitescis.org/ BiteScis]. The same parent organization also has [https://perbites.org/ PERbites] which summarizes physics education research articles. |
| − | **What region are they studying? What did they learn?
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| − | * Find a recent paper by Luisa Rebull or Varoujan Gorjian or any other mentor astronomer you know. What is it about?
| + | [https://aasnova.org/ AAS Nova] is research highlights from the AAS journals. Some overlap with Astrobites above, but also some content unique to it. |
| − | **Can you find one where more than one of your mentor astronomer friends are both co-authors of the same paper? No guarantees that you will -- we span a broad range of interests! If you find one, what is it about?
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| − | * Bonus question: Find a paper on any subject of interest to you published ''in a journal, this month''. What is it about?
| + | [https://xkcd.com/2085/ This specific xkcd comic] |
| − | * Bonus question: Find a paper on any subject of interest to you posted ''to the web, this week''. What is it about? (Hint: the very most recent things aren't in the journals yet. ADS will let you search "arXiv e-prints", which links to [http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/astro-ph this archive].)
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| | + | [https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12566 Astronomy Paper Seminar Participation Guide & Reading Walkthrough], Cooke et al. (2020), written for an undergraduate and graduate student audience. (Incidentally, this is an example of an astronomy-relevant paper that only appears in arXiv, not in a journal.) |
How can you find out what scientists already know about a particular astronomy topic or object?
Searching the literature is an essential part of doing research. Reading the literature is different than reading a newspaper article.
Most coherent, developed, tested materials
Movie (25:35) on basics of astronomical literature searching (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2022) -- newly updated!!
Movie (21:54) on basics of astronomical literature searching (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016) 2nd half particularly out of date, sorry.
Movie (15:57) on how to read scientific literature (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016)
Movie (17:38) on a case study on how to read a scientific paper with a goal of getting data out. It was for one of my IC417 teams, so it uses a paper relevant to IC417. (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2016)
Important note about publications (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, 2020)
Literature: Observation and Inference by David Strasburger (NITARP alum)
Somewhat less coherent (or less standalone) materials
"How to read scientific posters" portion of this NITARP kick-off workshop talk (by Dr. Varoujan Gorjian; this version from the AAS workshop 2020)
Literature searching worksheet (by Dr. Luisa Rebull, circa 2009 but updated slightly)
Other sources of interest
Astrobites is an AAS-supported site that is run by grad students. Every day, they pick at least one article from arXiv and summarize what the article is discussing, including relevant background if relevant. This is a great way for anyone (you, your students) to keep current on astronomical literature. They tend to pick important articles, so even if you don't want to read their summaries of the journal articles, you can take their paper suggestions and read the papers completely on your own. There are also summaries of really important papers from the past, as well as guides for students on careers and graduate school, and basics about telescopes, etc. There are even materials on using Astrobites in classes; also see BiteScis. The same parent organization also has PERbites which summarizes physics education research articles.
AAS Nova is research highlights from the AAS journals. Some overlap with Astrobites above, but also some content unique to it.
This specific xkcd comic
Astronomy Paper Seminar Participation Guide & Reading Walkthrough, Cooke et al. (2020), written for an undergraduate and graduate student audience. (Incidentally, this is an example of an astronomy-relevant paper that only appears in arXiv, not in a journal.)
