LibGuides: Mathematics Research Guide: Finding Sources

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Citation Resources

Guide to Mathematics Research

This guide contains links to math resources, online and some print, that are available through Belk Library.

Finding Sources

Also known as "Scholarly Articles," "Peer-Reviewed Articles," or "Academic Articles," these are:

written and reviewed by scholars and provide new research, analysis, or information about a specific topic
usually focused on a narrow subject or a single case study
intended for an academic audience

Know your types of articles:

"peer-reviewed" means the article is approved by other experts before publication or presentation
a "review" article summarizes the field's current understanding of a topic (great for background information!)
a "preprint" is an early version of an article, usually prior to peer review

Pros	Cons
information is based on research and expertise information is detailed and focused on a narrow topic the peer-review process (mostly) insures that the information is accurate each article adds to a growing understanding of a topic by contributing new ideas	information is detailed and focused on a narrow topic often filled with field-specific jargon

Find Math & Math Education Articles:

ERIC This link opens in a new window
Citations and abstracts of educational journals, 1966-present.
MathSciNet This link opens in a new window
The American Mathematical Society's database, indexing mathematical research across fields and disciplines. Coverage starts in the 1800s and continues to present day.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Indexes tens of thousands of scholarly journals across all disciplines, as well as conference proceedings, monographs, and more. Pulls data from several different databases, but is traditionally strong in the sciences. Coverage (in Science Citation Index Expanded) starts in 1900 and continues to present day. Previously known as Web of Knowledge.

Books written by experts are a good source of information for many topics. Books in the sciences and engineering often contain:

Use these tools to help learn as you read.

Remember: you may only need to read one chapter of a scholarly book!

Pros	Cons
easier to read than journal articles, and (usually) written for a wider audience often undergo a peer-review process	contain less recent information, due to the long publication process can be lengthy

Find Math & Math Education Books:

Search Belk Library's online system to find both library materials and articles in our databases. Use the search box below to do a basic search on library materials and databases.

You may find that some math books are located in:

Access Engineering This link opens in a new window
A reference tool for professionals, academics, and students for authoritative, regularly updated science, math, and engineering information. Topics of interest include calculus, discrete math, analysis, and more.

Datasets are collections of data, numeric or textual, arranged in tables.

Pros	Cons
exact and specific can contain incredible detail or level of granularity not found elsewhere	can be messy or contain bias sometimes difficult to locate the exact type of data needed might be restricted access

Find & Use Data:

data.gov
The US government's open data portal. Search by format, type, or topic. Freely accessible.
Harvard Dataverse
Find, use, and cite data from Harvard's Dataverse repository. Highly interdisciplinary, containing files from any and all fields. Not quite what you were looking for? Other instances of Dataverse exist as well.
UCI Machine Learning Repository
UC Irvine maintains this archive of about 600 datasets. Search by topic, attributes, tasks, or contribute your own dataset for others to use. Freely accessible.

O'Reilly for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
A multi-disciplinary, multi-publisher reference platform for online learning in programming, computer science, technology, software development, design, business, and more. Search for and read ebooks, review case studies, watch instructional videos, and follow curated playlists of content. Previously known as Safari Books Online.