Biology Issues Project Research Guide

Good places to start reseaching your issue

• Oxford Reference Online - Check here for brief definitions and overviews of terms.
• Annual Reviews Online - Summaries written by leading scientists which provide the worldwide scientific community with a useful and intelligent synthesis of the primary research literature for a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. Annual Reviews are not peer-reviewed, but are very reliable and are amongst the most highly cited in scientific literature. (Once you find a review you want, search for it in Academic Search Premier) 
• Opposing Viewpoints - Database which features articles presenting the different viewpoints of contentious issues. Includes "topic overviews, full-text magazine and newspaper articles, primary source documents, statistics, images and podcasts, and links to websites." You can limit to peer-reviewed journals.
• CQ Researcher - Comprehensive reports on issues in the news including an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources. Make sure you check the date of the report for currency. Not peer-reviewed.

 Find Articles and Citations

SELECTED RESEARCH DATABASES

• General Science Collection - Consists of over 200 journals encompassing the most popular scientific titles available today. This resource provides information needed to stay current on the latest scientific developments. You can limit to peer-reviewed articles.
• Academic Search Premier - An all-purpose database which includes general science articles. You can limit to peer-reviewed articles.
• BioOne - A unique collection of full-text articles produced by societies and non-commercial publishers, including 86 high-impact bioscience research journals from 63 publishers. All are peer-reviewed.
• Highwire Press - Portal to online versions of high-impact (more than 70 of the 200 most-frequently-cited journals in science are hosted), peer-reviewed science journals provided by the Standford University Library. A fair amount of full-text is available.
• AGRICOLA - Database of citations for books, journal articles, and other resources covering agriculture and allied fields found in the National Agriculture Library (NAL), including some links to full-text. Mostly peer-reviewed, but no way to limit to just peer-reviewed.
• BioMed Central - Publisher of 199 peer-reviewed open access journals, providing free and immediate access to recent biomedical research findings, all available in full-text. Searching requires registration.
• PubMed - A Web interface provided by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to access their MEDLINE database which contains over 16 million references to journal articles in life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine. Citations are indexed using the specialized Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Not much full-text.
• ScienceDirect - Claims to contain 25% of the world's science, technology, and medicine citations. We have access to citations and abstracts, but not full-text.
• Also try the other databases listed on the Science/Math Databases page

SCIENCE JOURNALISM ONLINE (not peer-reviewed)

• Scientific American
• New Scientist
• American Scientist
• Science News
• Discovery Channel

 PRINT JOURNALS (peer-reviewed)

• Nature
• Science

OTHER TOOLS

• Journal Finder/Article Linker - This tool has multiple uses and will be very handy in all your classes.
  • Use it to find the full text when you only have a citation
  • Use it to browse for journal titles that may be in your subject area (in the Browse journals by subject area, choose Health and Biological Sciences)
  • Journal Finder/Article Linker

    Title begins with Title equals Title contains all words ISSN equals
    
     
• QuickSearch (via BearHunt) - Search multiple databases simultaneously. Tradeoffs include less nuanced searching and slow loading results.
  • Search multiple science/math databases simultaneously (BearHunt)
    
     
• Google Scholar - A Google interface for academic materials.

Finding Books 

CATALOGS

• CLICnet : Joint catalog which spans the collections of the libraries at Concordia, Augsburg, Bethel, St. Cate's, Hamline, Macalester, Northwestern, and St. Thomas. 
  • Search CLICnet by Keyword, Author, Title, or Standard Number (ISBN or ISSN):
    Search for books (CLICnet)
    

    Keyword Author Title ISBN/ISSN
  • or browse CLICnet by subject: Biology
• Worldcat.org : Catalog of over 1 billion items in libraries across the world. If the title you want is not available via CLICnet, request via the proper Interlibrary Loan Form.
• DeweyBrowser - Locate the Dewey Decimal System call number of the general area to browse at the library with this this tool

E-BOOK COLLECTIONS

• Bookshelf
• NetLibrary 
• Gale Virtual Reference Library