Biology

Can't find what you are looking for? Give interlibrary loan at try! Basically if you want something (articles, books, DVDs) we will borrow that item from another institution for you. It's that easy.

Keywords are...

• A good way to start a search.
• The important concepts in your own words.
• Found anywhere in the article (title, author, subject terms, etc.).
• Very flexible.

Try Boolean Operators...

• "Or" broadens your search results.  (Citrus OR Oranges OR Lemons OR Tangerines OR Grapefruit)
• "And" narrows your search results. (Rainfall AND Deforestation AND Brazil)
• "Not" narrows your search results. (Wound healing NOT Plants) (Social media NOT Facebook)
• "Not" can be used to weed out biased words or phrases associated with your topic. (immigrants NOT illegal aliens)
• Combine operators for more complex searching. (Coastal sage scrub AND fire OR Postfire OR Postburn)

Truncation...

• Broadens your search
• Enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end.
• The database will return results that include any ending of that root word. (teen* = teens, teenager, teenagers, teenaged.  environment* = environments, environmental, environmentalist)

Wildcards...

• Broadens your search.
• Use if a word can be spelled several different ways but has the same meaning.
• Wom*n = women, woman,  col*r = color, colour

Limit to Peer-Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles...

• This is part of the publication & editorial process for academic and research journals.  Being peer-reviewed is a sign that a paper's author(s) have done a certain level of due diligence in their work and their research is complete, manages conflicts-of-interest, and is fair and objective.

Narrow the Date Range...

• When looking for Current Research or Evidence-Based Practices limit your date range to the last 3-5 years.

For some of us, it helps to break down our research components so that we can create more effective search strategies. I create this worksheet that might help you do that!