Finding an interesting paper

A good scientist is always up to date with current literature in the field. Set aside some time in the evening or morning at least once per week to browse for new papers.

Here is a mini list of places to find interesting new papers:

• PRL http://prl.aps.org/ (their editor's picks can be useful) 
• Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html 
• Nature Physics http://www.nature.com/nphys/index.html 
• Nature Photonics http://www.nature.com/nphoton/index.html 
• Science http://www.sciencemag.org/ 
• Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science: http://scitation.aip.org/ultrafast/ (this is an edited collection of good papers from the field (covering many Journals), they offer email and RSS alerts too). Unfortunately they have discontinued their service!!
• arxiv: http://uk.arxiv.org/ less used in our field, but sometimes you get papers there before they get submitted for Journal review.

General Search engines:

• web of knowledge (THE traditional search engine) click here to go straight to the search. I find it a bit slow to work with.
• Google scholar http://scholar.google.co.uk is a very useful tool. You can not only create a very targeted search easily, but you can also create an email alert from it to get an automated email every time a new hit is found. It can also keep track of your own papers and citations of them and calculate your h-index.
• A less known but very very fast and good search engine is Scirus http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/ . It is also independent of google, so a plus for all the google haters... they are owned by Elsevier, though. So you have to pick the minor evil...  they closed down...

Some 'social networks' for scientists...

• Mendeley: http://www.mendeley.com/ this includes a personal database and software for mac and pc.
• ReserachGate: http://www.researchgate.net/ this doesn't include software, but seems a good platform with less commercial interest than mendeley. It seems good for networking
• ... and probably more...

A note on self-archiving:

• self-archiving means that you offer a pdf version of your own published paper for public download.
• This is useful to make your work more visible. (not all Universities are as rich as Imperial and have subscriptions to all Journals available)
• Most Journals (apart from Elsevier, (but there is some movement due to large boycott)) allow self-archiving (even of the published pdf-file). But check first before putting your paper online!
• You can use Imperial's own spiral system (I find it ridiculously cumbersome), or ResearchGate / Mendeley, or any personal website you have.