Dissertations and Theses: Some Tools to Support Your Progress

Annual Review of ....?

The Libraries subscribe to a series called Annual Review of _______ with the blank filled by a number of different subjects. Each selection within a volume is a detailed essay reviewing the literature in a topic related to the field. Discipline-specific volumes contain solicited content from commissioned authors; being selected is an honor and authors are often recommended by their peers. Not all subjects are covered by the series; we don't own all of the series. If you aren't sure what to use as a topic to fill in the blank, use the link below and browse the list. 

"Who Should Read This Series?"

This is a description from a comment on the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, but the principle holds for most disciplines: the series serves people in the field, graduate students, students and the interested public who wish to keep up in an area of interest without trying to cover multiple journals and other sources at all times. The volumes can be used to amplify textbooks, and are a reliable source of much information.

"The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is a useful resource for researchers and practitioners working on nature-society interactions who want and ought to know the current state of affairs on the topics reviewed, but who do not have the time to cover the individual articles in each of the dozen or so high-impact journals that would need to be read to keep up to date.... The review articles provide updates and the most recent take on many of the same issues covered more generally in such texts. In effect, the Annual Review of Environment and Resources is a rolling textbook or desk reference about environment, resources, and society....These authoritative, up-to-date reviews provide key background information at the intersections of science and policy."

Many of them are online; some are on the shelves in the various libraries on campus. They are often indexed in the databases related to the field.