As your knowledge about a topic expands, you will identify key authors or researchers who publish on the topic. This is a crucial step in entering the scholarly conversation. It helps you understand the scope of an area of research.
Often you will identify authors or researchers while reading publications you have already collected as part of your literature review. You may see the same names of authors show up over and over. You can also note the authors that appear in the references list.
When you identify these key authors or researchers, it can be valuable to review their other publications to see if they are relevant to your topic. You have a number of options when compiling a list of these types of publications. The two big ones available through Lavery Library are Scopus and Google Scholar.
Scopus includes an Authors search. There are a few ways to search for authors on this page, including: Author name, ORCID, and Keyword. The example below uses the author's name, with the last name in the first box and first name in the second: Crenshaw, Kimberlé.
It's possible you will have multiple matches to your author search; on the search results page you can "View last title" and this can offer a gimpse into a possible matches to your area of research. In the example search, I only have one match, but the image below shows the popped-open view of the last title.
Once you identify the correct researcher, select their name to be redirected to their author profile page. There is a lot of information on this page, but what is important for our use are the documents listed -- these are the articles, books, book chapters, etc. the author has published. In the case of Kimberlé Crenshaw, there are 29 documents available in this search. They will be organized by date, with the newest at the top, or you can use the drop-down menu to reorder the results. You can also look at documents that cite one (or more) of the documents listed.
You can review articles by selecting their title and reading the abstract. Use the Get It @ Fisher link to find full text in another library database or through our Interlibrary Loan service.
See the full author page for Kimberlé Crenshaw [link opens in new tab]
Google Scholar allows scholars to create a profile that includes their published works.
One of the easiest methods to search for a known author in Google Scholar is to enter the author's name. If their name is common, or if your first search attempt doesn't return expected results, use the author's last name and keywords from their area of research.
The example search below searches: Tara Yosso. This video has no narrative audio, descriptive captions are available.