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Biology 210 - Inquiry & Communication in Biology

Background

The Guide to Library Research provides an introduction to the research process, including an overview of "Scholarly" and "Popular" Publications

Reference Books

There are a few sources in the reference area of the library related to the biological sciences. Some of the more recent are:

The Cambridge dictionary of human biology and evolution. Ref QP34.5 .M24 2005

Life on earth : an encyclopedia of biodiversity, ecology, and evolution. Ref QH541.15.B56 L54 2002 (2 volumes)

Encyclopedia of evolution. Ref QH360.2 .E54 2002 (2 volumes)

A dictionary of biology. Ref QH302.5 .D5 2000

Oxford dictionary of biochemistry and molecular biology. Ref QD415.A25 O94 2000

Searching Databases for Articles

General Biology

BioOne (Bioscience Research Journals)
Includes more than 40 full-text research journals focused on the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. Includes the journal BioScience.

Other Science Databases

AGRICOLA
AGRICOLA contains bibliographic records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library and covers every major agricultural subject.

American Chemical Society Publications
Includes full-text of all ACS journals. Cannot be accessed from off-campus due to licensing restrictions.

Environment Complete
Offers coverage in the areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more

Nature
International weekly journal of science

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete
Citations, abstracts and some full-text for nearly 4000 scholarly and popular periodicals.

Current Contents
Multidisciplinary database that covers approximately 8,000 scholarly journals various disciplines including the sciences.

JSTOR
Access to back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. (You may Browse journal coverage by disciplines, including Biological Sciences and Botany & Plant Sciences.)

MEDLINE
"National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database with links to the complete text of articles from leading medical journals." Includes articles on medical botany.

PubMed
PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources.

Research Library
Citations and abstracts to more than 1000 scholalry and popular journals with some full-text.

Science & Technology Collection
Contains over 800 full-text journals covering relevant aspects of the scientific and technical community.

Scopus
Scopus is an abstracts database of 27 million records covering articles from 14,000 peer-reviewed titles from more than 4,000 international publishers with access to abstracts in the scientific, medical, technical, and social science arena.

Wiley Interscience
Full-text access to Wiley journals, includes biological and other sciences.

Another useful database...

WorldCat: find books & publications owned by databases worldwide.

You do not need to know who owns a book or journal before placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

Does McCain Library have this journal? Is it full-text?

If the database you are searching does not include your journal or article, search the Journal/Article Locator.

This tool will tell you if we have your journal through any database. The journal/article locator will also tell you if we have a publication in our print or microfilm collections. Double-check by searching in SOPHIA for the journal title (not the article title). If we don't own or have access to the publication, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan, or, check to see if another local library that you can visit owns it.

Other local libraries may have books in their collections on your topic. Try searching their catalogs for relevant materials.

Creating a Bibliography

RefWorks: Useful web-based tool that allows researchers to import references from online databases. You can use these references in writing your papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds. The tutorial and Quick Start Guide are both very well-done; they are available under "About Us" link in RefWorks.

Please note: RefWorks is an excellent tool & can create bibliographies in many formats. They do not claim 100% accuracy though; it is still your responsibilty to ensure entries are in the proper citation format. Please proofread!

For additional assistance, please contact the McCain Library Scottie Research & Rescue (Reference) Desk in person, by phone (404-471-6096), email us, or IM us at asclibrarian (AOL & Yahoo).