Finding Articles
Databases are the first place to look for articles. Databases usually have information about an article (such as the title, author, name of the journal or magazine in which the article appeared) and they may also contain a summary (abstract) of the article.
Some databases have a complete copy of the articles (called full text). In this case there is a link to an HTML or PDF document.
Search Tips
Use these search strategies to help you find useful information quickly and effectively:
Quotation Marks for Phrase Searching
Let one good book or article lead you to others. Scholarly publications almost always have bibliographies or lists of works cited. Check these out! If the original source is useful to you, works used by the author may be valuable, too. Even Wikipedia's footbotes can help you to find citations, even if Wikipedia articles themselves are not acceptable resources.
You can also see how a particular book or article is categorized and look for other works in that category.
Check out these searching tutorials for more information:
Databases
Begin your search in these recommended databases:
- Academic Search UltimateContent include academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos which meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more. Full text is provided for over 10,000 peer-reviewed journals.
- American Chemical Society (ACS)Site stocked with Chemistry updates, news, research and career information.
- arXiv - Mathematics e-print archive - Cornell UniversityarXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematiccs, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative biology. The scholarly work is available from Cornell University, and partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
- BioMed CentralBioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. BioMed Central views open access to research as essential in order to ensure the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. A portfoliio of 220 journals, all research articles in BioMed Central's journals receive rapid and thorough peer review.
- CINAHL CompleteThis is the definitive research tool for nursing and allied health professionals. With CINAHL Complete users get fast and easy access to top nursing and allied health journals, evidence-based care sheets and quick lessons. Full text for more than 1,300 journals dating back to 1937.
- Health Source: Nursing/Academic EditionIndexes over 620 journals in several medical disciplines, including the full-text of 580 of those publications.
- NCBI - National Center for Biotechnology Information"Research in the NCBI Computational Biology Branch (CBB) focuses on theoretical, analytical, and applied computational approaches to a broad range of fundamental problems in molecular biology and medicine."
- Pubmed CentralPubMed Central (PMC) is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
- Science.govScience.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results. Science.gov is governed by the interagency Science.gov Alliance
Try these Open Access Biology Journals!
- BMC Microbiology"is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in analytical and functional studies of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms, viruses and small parasites, as well as host and therapeutic responses to them, and their interaction with the environment."
- Hindawi JournalsHindawi publishes over 200 open access journals. Check out the Biology Journals. Click on the "Table of Contents" for links to the articles.
- Open Biology"Open access journal covering biology at the molecular and cellular level. This selective, online journal publishes original, high quality research in cell biology, developmental and structural biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, immunology, microbiology and genetics."
- PLoS - Public Library of Science JournalsArticles on biology, medicine, and related topics made available by non-profit group of scientists and doctors.
- WIREs Developmental BiologyComplimentary access to this new journal till the end of 2012!
