Biology 2244W  Ecology

Library Instruction

Spring, 2013

Introduction

• What are refereed journals? 
• What is primary literature?

Choosing a topic:

Look for sources with broad background information

·         Search for a particular journal or review journal (Science, Nature, TREE, Ecology, etc.)

·         Scan popular science sciences magazines such as Bioscience, Scientific American, Discover, etc. or popular websites like www.sciencedaily.com

·         Search for review articles, both for background information and for lists of primary literature on a topic

Find primary research on specific topics:

Biology databases:

• Biosis Previews - best overall biology database 1969+
• ASFA - marine and freshwater environments 1978+
• CAB Direct - agriculture, parasitology, veterinary science 1973+
• Agricola - agriculture, US focused 1970+
• Zoological Record - premier zoology database 1864+
• PubMed - human health related, 1950's

Citation Databases

• Web of Science -  multidisciplinrary strong science coverage 1974+
• Scopus - multidisciplinary, strong science coverage 1996+

Search Essentials

1. Identify the main concepts of your search topic
2. Truncation
3. Operators (and, or, not)
4. Nesting terms
5. Field searching - review articles
6. Locate the DOI for an article
   

 EXERCISE

Locate Journal Articles

Finding Fulltext: UConn Links button     

• EJournal Locator
• Homer, Library Catalog
• Interlibrary Loan

Vocabulary & Concept Assistance:

• Dictionaries
• Encyclopedias

Writing Assistance

For assistance in writing and editing papers, contact the UConn Writing Center at www.writingcenter.uconn.edu or 860.486.4387

Assistance with Scientific Names for Organisms:

Integrated Taxonomic Information System – an authoritative taxonomic information source for plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world. A good source for taxonomc hierarchies from either scientific or common organism names.

 RefWorks - a tool to help you manage citations and write papers

• import references directly from online databases, catalogs and Google Scholar
• combine with Word to help you write papers and bibliographies
• access your personal account from any computer connected to the Internet
• free access to all UConn students