A Method for a Literature Search on Microbiota and Obesity for PhD Biomedical Research Using the Web of Science (WoS) and the Tree of Science (ToS)

In this article, the process and results of a literature search using a new proposed scientific literature search tool (ToS: Tree of Science) aimed at partially overcoming the need to search in different databases was used. In its present form, ToS needs, as input, a previous search in the Web of Science (WoS), and by means of all references used in the articles found in the WoS search, it selects the more significant items, classifying them into three categories: root, trunk and leaves. In our example, from an initial total sum of 164 hits found in WoS, ToS provided 90 items. The following fields of these two results were put together in an Excel sheet for elimination of repetitions and further consideration: title, authors, source, year of publication and DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Then, the titles of the articles were read and graded by the three authors (a senior researcher, a junior researcher, and a PhD student) as 0 (of no interest for the topic), 1 (of possible interest) or 2 (of interest). The marks were added up and those with a score > 3 (56) were selected for the abstracts to be read by the PhD student to establish a final student’s own selection (SoS) of articles for initiating the review of the literature on her topic of interest.