Bibliographic Research: Definition, Types, Techniques
The Bibliographic research or documentary consists in the revision of existing bibliographical material with respect to the subject to be studied. It is one of the main steps for any investigation and includes the selection of information sources.
It is considered an essential step because it includes a set of phases that encompass observation, inquiry, interpretation, reflection and analysis to obtain the necessary bases for the development of any study.
- 1 Definition
- 2 characteristics
- 3.1 Argumentative or exploratory type
- 3.2 Informative or of the expository type
- 4.1 Relevance
- 4.2 Exhaustive
- 4.3 Present
- 5.1 Accumulate references
- 5.2 Select references
- 5.3 Incorporate elements in the work plan
- 5.6 Confront and verify
- 5.7 Correct and make the final revisions
- 6.1 Primary
- 6.2 Secondary
- 6.3 Tertiary
- 7 Examples of bibliographical references
- 8 Importance
- 9 References
Different authors have been in charge of conceptualizing bibliographic research. Next, the definitions made by three prominent authors will be described:
- Guillermina Baena, graduated in Information Sciences (1985):"Documentary research is a technique that consists of the selection and collection of information through reading, critique of documents and bibliographic materials, libraries, newspaper archives and educational centers. documentation and information."
- Laura Cázares, researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico (2000):"(....) Depends primarily on the information collected or consulted in documents that can be used as a source or reference at any time or place."
- Manual of the Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador (UPEL -2005):"Integration, organization and evaluation of existing theoretical and empirical information on a problem".
characteristics
- There is a review of documents to know the state of the subject or object that is being investigated.
- Presents a process that consists in the collection, selection, analysis and presentation of the results.
- Involves complex cognitive processes, such as analysis, synthesis and deduction.
- It is done in an orderly manner and with precise objectives.
- Its purpose is the construction of knowledge.
- It supports the research that is being carried out, at the same time that it allows to avoid carrying out studies already explored.
Types of bibliographic research
In general terms, there are two types of bibliographic or documentary research:
Argumentative or exploratory type
The main objective of the researcher is to take a position on a certain topic to test whether that element to study is correct or incorrect. Consider causes, consequences and possible solutions that will lead to a conclusion more critical type.
Informative or of the expository type
Unlike the previous one, it does not seek to object to a topic but to recreate the theoretical context of the investigation. For this it uses reliable sources, and the selection and analysis of the material in question.
Criteria for the selection of material
It should be noted that it is vital for the researcher to rely on his capacity for analysis and synthesis of ideas to present a fluid and coherent work. During the bibliographic research process it is necessary to consider a series of criteria for the selection of documentary material:
It refers to the fact that the sources must be consonant with the object of study, as well as their objectives, in order to base the investigation.
All sources must be necessary, sufficient and possible, without excluding any that may also represent an important contribution. They must correspond to the objectives set.
Recent research or studies to support the research will be taken into account.
It is important to point out that before carrying out the review of documentary and bibliographic material, it is vital to be clear about the following:
- Determine the subject to be studied, which must be combined with the possibilities of the researcher, framed in a prudential time with future projection and with a connection to his area of study.
- After this, make a work plan that will serve as a guide for the correct selection of bibliography.
The process of collecting data, information and documents is complex and requires a series of steps for the correct handling of information:
Accumulate references
The references include any type of written or audiovisual document that will be essential to support the investigation.
Select references
The material that respects the quality and current standards will be chosen.
Incorporate elements in the work plan
It deals with the organization of the chosen documents in alphabetical or chronological order.
It refers to the emptying of the basic information of the collected material, where the appointment to be used, the summary and the comment made by the researcher will be collected.
Placement of specific data.
Confront and verify
The aim is to determine if, indeed, the hypothesis raised by the author is valid, based on the information collected.
Correct and make the final revisions
It refers to the latest arrangements made to the form and background of the investigation.
Types of documents
To simplify the search and make it easier, three types of documents are classified:
They transmit direct information. For example, original articles and doctoral theses.
They make reference to the primary documents and extract the author and the type of publication. For example, catalogs and databases.
They synthesize the information found in the primary and secondary documents to answer questions and specific questions.
Likewise, another type of document classification can be included:
- Books and monographs: manuals, texts, minutes, anthologies.
- Periodicals: magazines, newspapers, advances.
- Reference publications: indexes, databases, bibliographies.
- Technical publications: standards, patents, technical catalogs.
- Reference material: encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlas.
Examples of bibliographical references
In bibliographic research it is necessary to respect the rules related to the citation of texts. To have a better reference in this regard, here are some examples:
-"Pinillos, José Luis (1975). Principles of Psychology. Madrid: Alliance."
-"Taylor, S. and Bogdan, R. (1992). Introduction to qualitative research methods. Barcelona: Paidós."
- When it is a chapter of a book:"Martí, Eduardo (1999). Metacognition and learning strategies. In: J Pozo and C. Monereo (Coords.). The strategic learning. (111-121). Madrid: Classroom XXI-Santillana".
- Scientific journal article:"García Jiménez, E. (1998). A practical theory about evaluation. Journal of Education, 287, 233-253."
- Article signed in a newspaper:"Debesa, Fabián (200, March 12). Careers and their entry strategies. Clarín, Education Section, p.12".
- Any field of study needs constant study and research.
- It is estimated that, thanks to documentary and bibliographic research, it is possible to achieve a good educational training at all levels.
- The progress of scientific studies needs documentation.
- To start any type of study it is necessary to review previous material to carry out the investigation.
- What is the bibliographic review? (s.f.). In Philosophia, Scientia et Praxis. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. In Philosophia, Scientia et Praxis de filoncien.blogspot.pe.
- About bibliographic and documentary research. (2013). In Thesis Guide. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. In Thesis Guide of guiadetesis.wordpress.com.
- Córdoba González, Saray. (s.f.). The bibliographic research . In Ucrindex. Retrieved: 01 d March 2018. In Ucrindex of ucrindex.ucr.ac.cr.
- Definitions Documentary Investigation. (s.f.). In Scribd. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. On Scribd from es.scribd.com.
- Bibliographic research. (s.f.). In Monographs. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. Monographs of monographs.com.
- Mora De Labastida, Natalia. (s.f.). The bibliographical investigation. Main and secondary ideas . In Fido. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. In Fido from fido.palermo.edu.
- Types of research. (s.f.). In research thesis. Retrieved: March 1, 2018. In research thesis of tesisdeinvestig.blogspot.pe.
Recent Posts
How to Write a Bibliography for a Research Paper
Do not try to “wow” your instructor with a long bibliography when your instructor requests only a works cited page. It is tempting, after doing a lot of work to research a paper, to try to include summaries on each source as you write your paper so that your instructor appreciates how much work you did. That is a trap you want to avoid. MLA style, the one that is most commonly followed in high schools and university writing courses, dictates that you include only the works you actually cited in your paper—not all those that you used.
Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services
Get 10% off with 24start discount code, assembling bibliographies and works cited.
- If your assignment calls for a bibliography, list all the sources you consulted in your research.
- If your assignment calls for a works cited or references page, include only the sources you quote, summarize, paraphrase, or mention in your paper.
- If your works cited page includes a source that you did not cite in your paper, delete it.
- All in-text citations that you used at the end of quotations, summaries, and paraphrases to credit others for their ideas,words, and work must be accompanied by a cited reference in the bibliography or works cited. These references must include specific information about the source so that your readers can identify precisely where the information came from.The citation entries on a works cited page typically include the author’s name, the name of the article, the name of the publication, the name of the publisher (for books), where it was published (for books), and when it was published.
The good news is that you do not have to memorize all the many ways the works cited entries should be written. Numerous helpful style guides are available to show you the information that should be included, in what order it should appear, and how to format it. The format often differs according to the style guide you are using. The Modern Language Association (MLA) follows a particular style that is a bit different from APA (American Psychological Association) style, and both are somewhat different from the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). Always ask your teacher which style you should use.
A bibliography usually appears at the end of a paper on its own separate page. All bibliography entries—books, periodicals, Web sites, and nontext sources such radio broadcasts—are listed together in alphabetical order. Books and articles are alphabetized by the author’s last name.
Most teachers suggest that you follow a standard style for listing different types of sources. If your teacher asks you to use a different form, however, follow his or her instructions. Take pride in your bibliography. It represents some of the most important work you’ve done for your research paper—and using proper form shows that you are a serious and careful researcher.
Bibliography Entry for a Book
A bibliography entry for a book begins with the author’s name, which is written in this order: last name, comma, first name, period. After the author’s name comes the title of the book. If you are handwriting your bibliography, underline each title. If you are working on a computer, put the book title in italicized type. Be sure to capitalize the words in the title correctly, exactly as they are written in the book itself. Following the title is the city where the book was published, followed by a colon, the name of the publisher, a comma, the date published, and a period. Here is an example:
Format : Author’s last name, first name. Book Title. Place of publication: publisher, date of publication.
- A book with one author : Hartz, Paula. Abortion: A Doctor’s Perspective, a Woman’s Dilemma . New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1992.
- A book with two or more authors : Landis, Jean M. and Rita J. Simon. Intelligence: Nature or Nurture? New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
Bibliography Entry for a Periodical
A bibliography entry for a periodical differs slightly in form from a bibliography entry for a book. For a magazine article, start with the author’s last name first, followed by a comma, then the first name and a period. Next, write the title of the article in quotation marks, and include a period (or other closing punctuation) inside the closing quotation mark. The title of the magazine is next, underlined or in italic type, depending on whether you are handwriting or using a computer, followed by a period. The date and year, followed by a colon and the pages on which the article appeared, come last. Here is an example:
Format: Author’s last name, first name. “Title of the Article.” Magazine. Month and year of publication: page numbers.
- Article in a monthly magazine : Crowley, J.E.,T.E. Levitan and R.P. Quinn.“Seven Deadly Half-Truths About Women.” Psychology Today March 1978: 94–106.
- Article in a weekly magazine : Schwartz, Felice N.“Management,Women, and the New Facts of Life.” Newsweek 20 July 2006: 21–22.
- Signed newspaper article : Ferraro, Susan. “In-law and Order: Finding Relative Calm.” The Daily News 30 June 1998: 73.
- Unsigned newspaper article : “Beanie Babies May Be a Rotten Nest Egg.” Chicago Tribune 21 June 2004: 12.
Bibliography Entry for a Web Site
For sources such as Web sites include the information a reader needs to find the source or to know where and when you found it. Always begin with the last name of the author, broadcaster, person you interviewed, and so on. Here is an example of a bibliography for a Web site:
Format : Author.“Document Title.” Publication or Web site title. Date of publication. Date of access.
Example : Dodman, Dr. Nicholas. “Dog-Human Communication.” Pet Place . 10 November 2006. 23 January 2014 < http://www.petplace.com/dogs/dog-human-communication-2/page1.aspx >
After completing the bibliography you can breathe a huge sigh of relief and pat yourself on the back. You probably plan to turn in your work in printed or handwritten form, but you also may be making an oral presentation. However you plan to present your paper, do your best to show it in its best light. You’ve put a great deal of work and thought into this assignment, so you want your paper to look and sound its best. You’ve completed your research paper!
Back to How To Write A Research Paper .
ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER
Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
Evaluating Bibliographic Citations
Welcome to the Purdue OWL
This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.
Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
A bibliographic citation provides relevant information about the author and publication as well as a short summary of the text, usually known as the abstract. Depending on where you find your information, the bibliographic citation will vary.
Before you spend a lot of time reading a source, begin by looking at the following information in the citation to evaluate whether it's worth pursuing.
Consider the author, the title of the work, the summary, where it is (e.g., a book, an academic journal, a blog, a social media site), and the timeliness of the entry. You may also want to look at the keywords to see what other categories the work falls into. Evaluate this information to see if it is relevant and valid for your research.
Library Catalog
When searching for sources in a library catalog, the bibliographic citation will often include the author, the publisher, and the physical location of the source in the library (see image below). Using a library catalog is helpful if you are looking for print sources for your research.
Example of bibliographic citations in a library catalog.
Once you find the bibliographic citation, take a look at the author and the publisher. Has this author published other works? Does the publisher list other publications on their website? If you are still uncertain about the credibility, locate the physical source and read bits of it to see if it contains information that’s relevant to your research.
Online Databases
When searching for information in online databases such as EbscoHost or ProQuest , you will most likely find a bibliographic citation entry beneath the title of the source.
Examples of bibliographic citations in an online database.
If a summary or abstract is not available in the preview, often you can click on the source and view more details (see image below).
Sample extended bibliographic citation and abstract.
Different websites contain different levels of bibliographic citations. Sometimes it’s possible to find complete author information, while other times you may simply have a username or an author’s initials.
Most websites list the available author information directly under the title of the article or at the bottom of the article.
Sometimes a website does not list an author. If this is the case, it’s important to determine whether the website itself seems credible. If the website is associated with a print publication, or is from a well-known organization, it is probably credible. However, you should read the article to determine whether the information seems valid. On the next page you will find more strategies for determining whether a source is credible.
Understanding the differences in bibliographic citations is an important step as you search for sources to include in your research.
Eight tips and questions for your bibliographic study in business and management research
- Open access
- Published: 18 May 2020
- Volume 70 , pages 307–312, ( 2020 )
Cite this article
You have full access to this open access article
- Jörn H. Block 1 , 2 , 3 &
- Christian Fisch 1 , 2
15k Accesses
125 Citations
2 Altmetric
Explore all metrics
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Management Review Quarterly (MRQ) specializes in systematic literature reviews, meta analyses, replication studies, and bibliographic studies. Previous editorials published in MRQ provide authors with guidelines for performing systematic (narrative) literature reviews (Fisch and Block 2018 ) and replication studies (Block and Kuckertz 2018 ). In this editorial, we focus on bibliographic studies and outline eight tips that help authors to improve their bibliographic studies.
In contrast to systematic literature reviews, meta analyses, and replication studies, little information on best practices and guidelines exist on bibliographic studies (also known as bibliographic literature reviews). Over the last years, we saw a steady increase in the number of bibliographic studies submitted to MRQ. We attribute this rise to the better accessibility of bibliographic data and software packages that specialize in bibliographic analyses. Another antecedent of the increasing prevalence of bibliographic studies is the ongoing differentiation of business and management research into narrowly defined subdisciplines, which calls for studies that are interdisciplinary and ‘break the walls’. Well-conducted bibliographic studies can break those walls. They structure a field and detect links between disciplines, identify topic clusters, literature gaps and academic silos, and show the most impactful authors and their research. Yet, in contrast to narrative literature reviews, bibliographic literature reviews use quantitative and statistical methods to achieve this goal.
We currently observe a considerable heterogeneity in the type and quality of bibliographic studies submitted to MRQ. These submissions range from systematic narrative literature reviews erroneously labeled as bibliographic ones to purely technical citation analyses with little interpretation and discussion of the state of the art in the respective research field. Hence, there seems to be confusion in business and management research as to what a bibliographic study is and what defines its quality. The goal of this editorial is to reduce this confusion and help future authors of MRQ to craft bibliographic studies of high quality. In line with earlier MRQ editorials, we organize this editorial in eight tips and questions. Specifically, we outline suggestions that we perceive as crucial for every bibliographic study published in MRQ. Since bibliographic studies rely on a systematic collection of articles, this editorial shares many similarities with our editorial on systematic narrative literature reviews (Fisch and Block 2018 ) as well as as the editorial’s discussion and extension by Clark et al. ( 2020 ). We summarize the main commonalities and differences of the two forms of literature reviews in Table 1 .
Is your study really a bibliographic study? Although the term ‘bibliographic study’ is widely used in academic research, a clear definition is lacking. MRQ is interested in bibliographic studies, which we define as systematic literature reviews that analyze bibliographic data with bibliometric methods. Bibliographic data include, amongst others, author names, journal names, article titles, article keywords, article abstracts, and article publication years. These bibliographic data are collected and made available by bibliographic databases such as Web of Science (WoS) or Scopus. These databases also provide citation data. Bibliometric methods rely on statistical methods to analyze bibliographic and citation data. As noted above, many manuscripts submitted to MRQ are erroneously labeled as bibliographic studies as they do not use bibliometric (= statistical) methods and only provide lists of important and impactful studies, authors, topics, and journals. Compiling and providing such lists is an essential first step but does not qualify your study as a bibliographic study. Also, bibliographic studies should not be confused with annotated bibliographies, which comprise a list of references to important studies followed by a brief description of their content. MRQ sees annotated bibliographies as an important element of systematic narrative literature reviews.
Is your main research goal really to summarize the structure of a research field? Literature reviews can summarize the content and structure of a particular research field. While a narrative literature review aims to summarize the content of the studies of a particular research field, a bibliographic literature review focuses on assessing the structure of a particular research field. A description and summary of “simple” bibliographic data (e.g., authors, journal names) is too superficial to derive specific answers to particular research questions. Article titles, keywords, and abstracts are already more informative and can, for example, be used to identify topic clusters. Citation data helps to identify impactful articles, authors, and journals. Such data also facilitates the identification of topic clusters and allows the measurement of knowledge diffusion within and between disciplines.
Provide and motivate a research goal and explain why a bibliographic study is needed to achieve this goal. Your article’s abstract and introduction have an important motivational function. As such, carefully begin your study by delineating and motivating your research goal. In particular, carefully explain why you choose a bibliographic literature review to achieve this goal. In other words: inform the reader that the analysis of bibliographic data with bibliometric methods provides important insights regarding your research goal. In general, bibliographic studies are particularly useful to describe the structure of a research field (see tip 2 above) and its development over time because they help to identify topic clusters, author networks, literature gaps, and academic silos.
Identify the relevant literature in a broad, systematic, and reproducible way . A bibliographic study is a particular form of a systematic literature review. Hence, the literature search process should be transparent and reproducible. A detailed account of the search strategy is needed, which includes a description of the databases used, the search terms, and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Footnote 1 In particular, carefully choose your bibliographic database. For example, Scopus often has a broader coverage of journals than WoS and if you leave out some of the most important journals, that’s a problem. Note that the application of screening or inclusion criteria (e.g., only focusing on highly ranked journals) should be well-justified because the screening criteria can have crucial implications for the bibliographic data obtained and the results of the quantitative, bibliometric analysis that follows. Since bibliographic studies rely on a quantitative and objective approach to summarize the structure and trends of a field, the systematic approach to identifying the literature is, in our view, even more important than in interpretative and narrative forms of literature reviews. We also believe that the literature covered should be broader than in narrative literature reviews, for example, with regard to the journals or publication years considered.
Provide a map of the research field. While original empirical research articles typically begin their results section with descriptive statistics, bibliographic studies should commence with a description of the studies under investigation (i.e., a map of the field). For example, a good strategy is to provide a chronological view of the field (e.g., how has the number of studies evolved, how have the topics evolved, how have the outlets evolved), and to give an overview of the most influential authors, journals, and publications. The outline can be sorted by multiple criteria, such as the number of papers or different citation measures. Notice that different types of citation data exist and that you need to defend your approach and source of citation data. In our view, this map of the field is a critical part of any bibliographic study. Yet, a bibliographic study should not stop at that stage. Instead, you should use the map of the field as a starting point to dig deeper into your bibliographic data using bibliometric methods, as outlined in tip 6.
Clearly specify the methodological steps of your bibliometric analysis. As with most empirical and statistical analyses, performing a bibliometric analysis requires taking various methodological choices. For example, authors need to choose a software and need to carefully prepare the data to be used in the analysis, such as the keywords of articles used. Make a sensible choice about which keywords to include in the analysis. For example, including your original search terms as keywords may produce trivial results. While a lot of graphical illustrations exist in the field of bibliographic studies (e.g., to visualize citation clusters or links between authors), sometimes tables can be easier to understand and interpret than figures (which are also often in color and difficult to print). Carefully outline and motivate the choices made in this regard.
Use the full potential and range of bibliometric methods. A bibliographic study should rely on statistical tools to derive results. Hence, you should go beyond simple article and citation counts. Such measures can be used to provide a map of the field (see tip 5), but the main part of the bibliometric analysis should be build on more sophisticated, multivariate statistical analyses. Bibliometric or scientometric analysis has developed into a discipline itself and specialized journals exist, such as Scientometrics and the Journal of Informetrics. Some commonly applied bibliometric methods, which we would like to also see in MRQ manuscripts, include co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, and bibliometric coupling. We require authors of bibliographic studies to use such methods as a basis for their statements about the structure as well as the thematic clusters and gaps in the field. Yet, try to use these tools in a meaningful way. Simply displaying sophisticated tables, figures, and graphs derived from bibliometric software tools can lead to an overly descriptive and confusing picture of the field. Try to identify a relevant and interesting “story” that is supported by your bibliographic data and bibliometric analyses. Good examples of articles that have followed this approach are Aliyev et al. ( 2019 ), Block et al. ( 2019 ), and Kumar et al. ( 2019 ).
The bibliometric analysis needs to serve a purpose and needs to contribute to your research goal. The bibliometric analysis is the core of a bibliographic study. The most common mistake we see in manuscripts submitted to MRQ is that authors perform bibliometric analyses for the sake of performing bibliometric analyses. We are not interested in such manuscripts because they do not structure the knowledge in our field, do not lead to a discussion of where we are and what we know, and do not provide an agenda for future research. Hence, make sure that your bibliometric analysis contributes to the overall goal of MRQ. Like a systematic narrative literature review, bibliographic studies must go beyond a mere descriptive summary of prior literature. They require the authors to interpret and discuss the development and state of the field and give suggestions for meaningful future research.
See Fisch and Block ( 2018 ) and the references cited therein for more tips on systematic literature search.
Aliyev F, Urkmez T, Wagner R (2019) A comprehensive look at luxury brand marketing research from 2000 to 2016: a bibliometric study and content analysis. Manag Rev Q 69(3):233–264
Article Google Scholar
Block J, Kuckertz A (2018) Seven principles of effective replication studies: strengthening the evidence base of management research. Manag Rev Q 68(4):355–359
Block J, Fisch C, Rehan F (2019) Religion and entrepreneurship: a map of the field and a bibliometric analysis. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-019-00177-2 (forthcoming)
Clark WR, Clark LA, Raffo DM, Williams RI (2020) Extending Fisch and Block’s (2018) tips for a systematic review in management and business literature. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00184-8 (forthcoming)
Fisch C, Block J (2018) Six tips for your (systematic) literature review in business and management research. Manag Rev Q 68(2):103–106
Kumar S, Sureka R, Colombage S (2019) Capital structure of SMEs: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-019-00175-4E (forthcoming)
Download references
Acknowledgements
Open Access funding provided by Projekt DEAL.
Author information
Authors and affiliations.
Faculty of Management, Trier University, 54296, Trier, Germany
Jörn H. Block & Christian Fisch
Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Wittener Institut für Familienunternehmen (WIFU), Universität Witten/Herdecke, Alfred-Herrhausen-Str. 50, 58448, Witten, Germany
Jörn H. Block
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Jörn H. Block .
Additional information
Publisher's note.
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Block, J.H., Fisch, C. Eight tips and questions for your bibliographic study in business and management research. Manag Rev Q 70 , 307–312 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00188-4
Download citation
Published : 18 May 2020
Issue Date : August 2020
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00188-4
Share this article
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
- Find a journal
- Publish with us
- Track your research
Bibliographic Research Skills
- Begin your research
Conduct your research
- Select and evaluate sources
- Other research tools
- Ask a Librarian
You have two options to carry out your research. By choosing both, you will have a better chance that your bibliographic search will be more exhaustive. • Search on SearchLib and bibliographic databases using the keywords you have defined • Start from a relevant academic article, book or author and search for other related publications (citation search)
In both cases, remember to log in to your Library account to be able to access online resources.
- Citation search
SearchLib is a search engine. By typing keywords into a Google like search box, this tool queries the majority of the Library print, electronic and digital collections.
You can either use the Simple search or launch a more refined search using the Advanced search feature.
Simple search
- Type keywords, a title or an author's name in the search box.
- Choose the search scope: Library Catalog, Electronic Resources, Course Reserves, Dissertations, IRIS, ASBOC Archives.
- Filter your results using the left hand-side menu (availability, resource type, date, etc.)
Advanced search
Advanced search allows you to combine different keywords within specific search fields and set filters before lauching your search.
Discover how to make the most out of SearchLib in our dedicated guide !
The Library also provides several databases that can be useful for bibliographic research: Multidisciplinary
Specialized
Refer to the databases that you find in the Library guide for your subject area.
This is a type of advanced search that starts from a specific author, article, or academic book that you feel is important and interesting for your research (e.g., an author who is an expert in that area of research or a study recommended by your professor or selected from the results of your own literature search) and allows you to find related publications through the citation chain. Web of Science , Scopus , Business Source Ultimate offer you the opportunity to follow the chain of citations both forward in time (more recent publications citing in their bibliographies the author, article or book from which you started), and backward (previous publications cited in the bibliography of the author, article or book from which you started). The idea is that publications citing the same studies deal with the same or otherwise related topic. Citation search can be useful for:
- Expand and update your bibliographic research
- Determine the impact of a study in a specific research field based on the number of times it has been cited by other researchers
- Observe how an argument, an idea, a theory has developed
- Discover different insights and perspectives that examine your research topic
- Discover relevant articles from unexpected disciplines
- Find other keywords to use for your bibliographic research
Here are a few examples:
Web of Science
Citations : this is the list of the most recent publications in Web of Science that cite your source document Cited References : this is the list of previous publications cited in the bibliography of your source document View Related Records : it allows you to view documents within Web of Science that cite all or some of the publications included in the bibliography of your source document, and for this reason may be correlated through the same or similar topic
Cited by : this is the list of the most recent publications in Web of Science that cite your source document Related documents : it allows you to view documents within Scopus that cite all or some of the publications included in the bibliography of your source document, and for this reason may be correlated through the same or similar topic References : this is the list of previous publications cited in the bibliography of your source document
Business Source Ultimate
Times Cited in this Database : this is the list of the most recent publications in Business Source Ultimate that cite your source document Cited References : is the list of previous publications included in the bibliography of your source document
Google Scholar
Google Scholar also allows you to search by citation, but only for the most recent publications that cite the paper you're starting from and for related ones.
- << Previous: Begin your research
- Next: Select and evaluate sources >>
- Last Updated: Oct 21, 2024 3:25 PM
- URL: https://unibocconi.libguides.com/bibliographicresearch
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
The Bibliographic research or documentary consists in the revision of existing bibliographical material with respect to the subject to be studied. It is one of the main steps for any investigation and includes the selection of information sources. It is considered an essential step because it includes a set of phases that encompass observation ...
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication. Date. If the cited book was published prior to 1900, is from a publisher with offices in multiple countries, or is from a publisher that is largely unknown in the US, include the book’s city of publication. Otherwise, this can be left out.
Bibliography Entry for a Book. A bibliography entry for a book begins with the author’s name, which is written in this order: last name, comma, first name, period. After the author’s name comes the title of the book. If you are handwriting your bibliography, underline each title. If you are working on a computer, put the book title in ...
Searching for bibliographic sources relevant to your project is an integral and unavoidable part of the thesis work. To find out how to conduct your bibliographic research, we suggest you consult the Bibliographic Research Guide. For a start, you can consult the Library books on academic writing (how to write assignments, presentations, theses
For example, if the study intends to provide a review of the past, present, and future of a research field with a large bibliometric corpus, then a combination of co-citation analysis (past), bibliographic coupling (present), and co-word analysis (e.g., notable words in the implications and future research directions of full texts) (future) can ...
A common use of informetric research includes comprehensive outlines of topics or sources based on bibliographic data. For example, Podsakoff et al. ( 2008 ) investigated the determinants of author and university impact in management literature over the period of 25 years to identify the most cited scholars and universities as well as other ...
Understanding the differences in bibliographic citations is an important step as you search for sources to include in your research. Evaluating sources of information is an important step in any research activity. This section provides information on evaluating bibliographic citations, aspects of evaluation, reading evaluation, print vs. online ...
Bibliometric analysis emerged to be a crucial tool for measuring the scientific outputs of different scientific items (e.g., papers, authors, keywords, journals, institutions, and countries) in any research field and examining how the intellectual, social, and conceptual structure of the relevant field has evolved over time based on the relationships and interactions between these items ...
We currently observe a considerable heterogeneity in the type and quality of bibliographic studies submitted to MRQ. These submissions range from systematic narrative literature reviews erroneously labeled as bibliographic ones to purely technical citation analyses with little interpretation and discussion of the state of the art in the respective research field.
Conduct your research. You have two options to carry out your research. By choosing both, you will have a better chance that your bibliographic search will be more exhaustive. • Search on SearchLib and bibliographic databases using the keywords you have defined. • Start from a relevant academic article, book or author and search for other ...