Gary A. Eplingl and Richard W. Franck Fordham Universitv Bronx. New York 10458
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Developing Familiarity with the Primary Literature of ChemistryA student exercise
I n recent years there have been several descriptions of literature-searching exercises in this Journal,%ome for use with introductorv courses-others for advanced courses. Thoueh the described were valuahle learning experienc& none seemed readily. applicable to a large class t~ecauieof the .. considrral)lr effort rrquirrd of the instructor in the selection of individual topics or questions for each student. Accordinrly, we have developed the-format described below whereby each student has an individually tailored search project, hut the overall preparation time for the instructor is~mi-nimized.We have-tested this program for three years a t Fordham, using it as part of the undergraduate organic chemistry course, and found that the program works smoothly even with classes of 200 students. It is generally recognized that a t some stage of a science student's training helshe should Drogress from a total reliance upon textbooks t o an awareness ofgnd familiarity with the primary sources of information, which will ultimately he h i s h e r main source of information in a scientific career. We recognize several key elements which must he mastered in such a transition: (1) becoming physically familiar with the location and format of journals and abstracting materials, (2) develonine an awareness of the cumulative nature of research. and ($ r:cognizing the extent to which a new discovery o; method relies upon . .previous work bv other scientists. In developing a library search project for undergraduates we wished to meet these ohiectives with a minimum of wasted effort bv the student. ~ h o n g hscientific interpretation of the content of journal articles is an important skill to cultivate, we chose t o forego an exercise requiring considerable chemical sophistication on the part of the student so that the exercise could he performedby students as part of the basic undergraduate organic chemistry course. After receiving (in groups of 20) a l-hr lecture and a guided tour through the lihrary, each student was given an assignment sheet describing the project and a "lead reference."The "lead reference" consisted of a structural drawing of a compound, the common name of the compound, and a journal reference to an important article about the compound. Thoueh the author's names were omitted from the iournal reference this presents no search problem. The compounds were selected generally from the Devon and Scott compilat i o n ~which , ~ provide an excellent variety of structures. The handout sheet' outlined a step-by-step description of how the student should proceed, the general philosophy being that the student was to find out how much is known about the compound in question. The student was directed to locate the "lead reference" in the appropriate journal in the library and 'Present address: Department of Chemistry, University of Con-
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2 ~Parker, a ~ (;. A...l. CHEM. EL)UC.,50,fillfi 119731. (b)H~amley. A. H . J.CHE.M. EIIUC.. 50.700tL97:O. l r l Duncan. R. 1. ..J. CHEhl. FI)UC..5U.7:l5(197R). (dl \Vubbela.(;. L . 1 . (:HE.M. EI)l'C..4Y.4Yfi (1972). 3Devon,T. K., and Scott, A. I., "Handbook of Naturally Occurring Compounds," Academic Press, New York, N.Y., 1975 (Vol. 1).1972 (Vol. 2). 'Copies of these materials may be obtained directly from the authors. 388 1 Journal of Chemical Education
also to find the abstract of the article in Chemical Abstracts using both the author and formula indices. Then the formula index was used to locate several other articles about the same cmpound. Kext the student was directed to find ver? rwrnt referencrs tu the lead article uslne the Scieuce ('itation Index and also touse the Science citation Index to find some recent references to footnotes in the original article whenever the article itself had not been cited recently. Once the student had developed a hibliogra~hv . . . of relevant articles, he examined the articles to discover their interrelationships. After reading the "lead reference," the student summarized the main point of the article in one or two sentences. Each student then selected two footnotes from the lead reference, read these articles, and summarized the important contribution made by the articles that caused them to he cited in the lead reference. In a similar vein, the student examined the recent articles uncovered through the use of the Science Citation Index and summarized the reasons for the citation of the lead reference. In some cases the later articles describe a synthesis for the compound, comment on its hioloeical activity, or correct a faulty structural assignment. After completion of the search the students submitted reports which cmsisred of a complrte hihliography of thr relevant articles and the descriptions 01 the rrlatiunshi~sbetween the articles. Though the students generally could not grasp the entire content of any of the articles, they could deduce generally why their lead reference was cited by a subsequent article, and they were able to indicate the main points of the articles. Students were eiven a samnle renort4 to use as a " guideline in writing their results, and usually a student could c o m ~ l e t ethe resuired work in about eieht hours. which could " he spread over number of days. ~
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Summary Outline of Library Project (1) Find "lead referencen in iournal and write a brief summarv
lated (5) Read and summarize the relationships between these new articles
and the lead reference; similarly, summarize the relationships between the footnoted articles (from step 2) and the lead reference. Though a few problems invariably develop, these are minor and can he solved simply. T o avoid library congestion the due dates for the assignme& are staggered. \\ihenrkr a particular journal is not avnilable in our library the student is directed to find the ahstriict oithat article in Chemirol i\hzrrncrs and to determine whether the abstract gives the desired info; mation. which it does eenerallv. Whenever a student's lead reference has been citeh by nobne since its publication, the student is directed to choose a footnote in the lead reference and search for future citations to this footnote. As with manv learninn experiences the efficacv of this exercise is difficuit to evaliate:~ll but a handful ofstudents do learn how to generate a bibliography . . . that would be useful for a comprehensive literature survey for their compound. Though some students consider the exercise a burden, others seem to enjoy the challenge, being particularly pleased when they uncover a familiar name in the primary literature. In
everv case the students are m i t e impressed with how much deta;l isactually available (&act reaction conditions, yields, spertra. e t c ) when one ran master the steps neulrd to find out &I to retrieve this information. We wish to thank professors Moses Kaloustian, Robert
Lees, and Steven Weinreh for assisting us in the administration of this project. We further wish t;arknowledge the gracious cooperation of Ellen Courtney, the rhemistr\. librarian, whose with and assistance to students are greatly appreciated
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Volume 56, Number 6,June 1979 / 389
