Basic Literature Searching

Searching the literature is an essential part of doing research. Nearly all the astronomical literature is online at ADS (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/). From anywhere, you can search via the ADS form, read abstracts, and old papers. For the most part you will only be able to read recent papers when you're connecting from a university internet domain such as caltech.edu (though your local public library might also have access).

Questions to think about and things to try with literature searching

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. Come up with your own answers and then you can discuss literature searching with others on this wiki.

• Find all papers by Maria Kun. Which are refereed, and which are conference proceedings?
• Find all papers involving IC 2118. What is the most recent one?

Go on to Advanced Literature Searching.