The "Exploring the Literature" section is the heart of this guide, containing explanations of all the major techniques for assembling sources for a literature review and suggestions for sources to start with, organized by subject, method, and commonly studied species.
Most of the resources listed here are intended as footholds into the literature--methods to find those first few important articles so that you can proceed with the citation tracing methods that will allow you to flesh out your literature review. Because I am expecting each person to look at a unique selection of subject, method, and species guides, the most general and widely useful resources sometimes appear in more than one place.
The technique discussions are provided in the approximate order in which they are useful in a project, going from techniques for getting broad overviews of a topic (such as using specialist encyclopedias or finding review articles) to techniques for finding sources that fulfill more specific needs (such as going directly to high quality journals or strategic database and catalog searching).
You will not necessarily need to use all these techniques in your project, but if you have master them all you will be able to assemble a literature review on any scholarly topic quickly and easily.
