Biology 1151 Research Paper
Dr. Susan Stamler
Marge Peters� . (630) 942-2337 . petersm@cdnet.cod.edu
1:� SEE AN EXAMPLE
2: FIND BOOKS WITH BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Link to the Library Catalog.http://lrc.cod.edu/
- Try these SUBJECTS: Photosynthesis, Plant physiology, Enzymes
- Check out entries in these reference books
- Encyclopedia of Life Sciences . 20 vols.
Reference QH 302.5 .E54 2001
- Facts on File Biology Handbook. Reference QH 310 .F23 2000
- Facts on File Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology.
Reference QH 575 .F33 2003
- Life Sciences on File . Reference QH 318 .L45 1999
- Magill's Survey of Science: Life Science Series . 7 vols.
Reference QH 307.2 .M34
- Online: Dictionary of Biology
3: SEARCH THE INTERNET
List your terms!
- The words you use are important! Make a list of the terms you want to find on websites
| catalase |
photosynthesis |
hydrogen peroxidase |
chlorophyll |
enzymes |
pigments |
pH (also acidity or alkalinity) |
starch |
temperature |
color absorption |
Major science gateways
- Scirus
Comprehensive search engine for science-specific topics. Results cite Science Web sites and provide abstracts from Medline, Science Direct, U.S. Patent office documents and more.
http://www.scirus.com
- Science.gov
The gateway to government science information. Provides access to over 47 million pages of government science information from 30 databases and 1700 websites, many part of the "deep web" that is inaccesible to search engines.
http://www.science.gov
Search Engines
- Google, Yahoo Search or Teoma match key words via software programs called "robots" or "spiders". See links from Library Home Page. Most programs only require the entry of all terms wanted--it only returns pages that include all of your search terms. For a better search, use quotation marks ("....") around phrases.
4: RESEARCH YOUR TOPIC IN JOURNALS AND SCIENCE MAGAZINES
Use your list of terms prepared for the Internet search.
- Find articles in journals
Click on "Article Databases" under Quick Links and choose from "Find a database by title.". Each of these databases has a slightly different way of searching . Most allow you to limit to only scholarly journal articles or to full-text only:
- Let's try a search in Expanded Academic Index. Click on "Relevance Search" on the left banner. Type in the terms you want to match. (The database searches for plurals when you enter the singular: diet matches diets, too). Can limit to only Full Text articles and Refereed Journals (research articles) . Another helpful hint: put quotation marks around multi-word terms such as "hydrogen peroxidase" to retrieve the phrase, not individual word. You will retrieve 200 items, with the best matches (most mentions of the words you searched) at the top of the list.
- Articles may be full-text / PDF (digitized image) or may be abstract only. If the Library does not have holdings of the journal, be sure to get interlibrary loan of your article if it is abstract-only
Special help for other databases:
Academic Search Premier : Checkmark "Peer-reviewed" to find scholarly articles only. Enter terms in find box. Put "and" between separate concepts, quotation marks around multi-word ideas and the truncation symbol (*) to get plurals and other terms based on the word stem: photosynthe* matches photosynthesis, photsynthetic,....
Ideal : We have subscribed to a subset of full-text journals from ScienceDirect called Ideal. To get the maximum number of hits, search the entire journal collection, even though you may need to arrange interlibrary loan.
If you click the PDF symbol when you retrieve articles and the database asks for a login and password, you know that this is one of the journals we do not subscribe to. Order these articles on Interlibrary Loan
Medline : Medline is known for providing access to the world of medical literature, but it covers a wide range of biological literature as well. To easily link two or more concepts, choose the Advanced Search. Use the truncation asterisk (*) to get plurals and further terms based on a stem. Very few of the articles resulting will be available full-text, so order these on Interlibrary Loan.
5: CITING SOURCES: MLA & APA Format
