Mathematics and Statistics
How to find articles, dissertations, and background information about math, statistics, and financial math.
Encyclopedias and Handbooks
Enter your search word followed by (encyclopedia OR handbook), and choose dates from the left column.
For example: books, with the word "computational" in the title, and either the word "encyclopedia" or handbook" also in the title, from 2018+ :
Types of Literature in Mathematics
| Monographic (Book) Series |
Scholarly books that are given one overall name (e.g., Lecture Notes in Mathematics) that are published in numbered volumes but each has its own title. The MSE Library has catalogued series differently over the years, so ask your librarian if you're having trouble finding one. -------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Journal Articles | Journal articles are usually peer-reviewed before publication, meaning that if a mathematician submits a manuscript for publication, other mathematicians in the same field will review that article before it is published. Journals use peer review to make sure that articles that articles are of high quality. -------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Review Articles | Review articles sum up the current state of research in a specific area. Review articles can help you think of topics, as well as identify the important researchers in a field, recent major advances and discoveries, gaps in existing research, current debates, and ideas where research might go next. To find review articles in databases, look for a term that says "review article" or "literature review." ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Conference Proceedings | Articles or reports on current research that are presented at academic and professional meetings. Papers presented at conferences tend to focus on the latest developments in research. As with scholarly articles, conference proceedings are generally written at an expert-level. Unlike scholarly articles, conference papers do not go through a peer-review process. ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Dissertations and Theses |
JHU holds both print and online dissertations and theses for works created by JHU students. JHU dissertations and those from other schools can be searched through Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global. ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Preprints | Publication in a preprint database or server can help distribute scientific ideas more quickly than the peer-reviewed scholarly article process. Preprints may differ from the postprint published article. In math, a major preprint server is arXiv.org. arXiv has preprints in physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quanitative biology. ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Handbooks, Textbooks, and other Reference Books |
These kinds of books can provide important information such as formulas, theorems, or overviews of topics. Most of the math handbooks and reference books in the Science Reference collection have call numbers that start with QA. |