| finding articles using databases / locating articles / interlibrary loan / using RefWorks to manage citations / Web sites for finding good information about invasive species
For more ideas see the subject guides for Environmental Studies and / or Biology or our list of biology journals.
Finding primary articles
CSA Biological Sciences
- Construct a search using synonyms and combining relevant concepts.
- Examine descriptors for ideas for alternate search terms.
Above each record there are several options
- view record simply shows the full database record with abstract - not the article.
- Find it! shows up if it's available online elsewhere or in print.
- If it's not here, an ILL link pulls up an easy-to-use interlibrary loan request form. Just fill in your barcode and last name. You'll get an E-mail message with a URL to the article within a few days.
Note: You may also want to search the Plant Science database - or do both at once by choosing both on this list.
Managing your citations
- mark citations you want to track as you go along by clicking on the box beside the number of the citation
- use the print/download/e-mail button at the top of the page to export your marked list
- use RefWorks if you want to save and reformat citations. (This requires setting up an account and learning how the software works - but it's very handy.)
Other databases
Web of Science
An interdisciplinary database (also known as Science Citation Index) that offers a unique feature: you can find out who has cited a publication since it was published using their "cited ref" search. If you're wondering whether a particular publication has been influential, this is one way to find out. It's also useful if you want to see how researchers have continued research reported in a previous publication. Note that for best results you want to search by author's last name and first initial: e.g. kittelson p* You also can do a "related records" search which looks for articles that share the most cited references. This is another powerful way to tap into related research.
JSTOR
This is an online archive of several core journals including a number in ecology. It does not include the most recent years. It does, however, have full text of all older issues of the journals included.
Locating articles in the library or online
From CSA, click on the yellow "find it!" button to see if the journal you're interested in is in full text in one of our databases or in our library catalog in print format.
Interlibrary loan
If we don't have the journal you need in print or electronic format, use the "ILL" button to submit an interlibrary loan request for it. If you want a reference that you didn't find through a database, check our journal locator to see if it's available here and, if not, simply put the information about the article you want in our blank form for journal articles. It can take time for these to arrive, so plan ahead. You don't need to know what library owns the journal - library staff can find that out for you. You will get an E-mail once scanned-in articles are available.
Copyright law limitations: our library is allowed to request no more than five articles from any one journal published within the past five years. If anyone asks for a sixth article, we can order it, but will have to pay a copyright fee. Because those fees can be quite high - $30 is not unusual - we will double check with you to see if it's something you really need. Be aware that could slow the process down.
Using RefWorks to compile and format your citations
You might notice that in the CSA databases there's an option to export your references to RefWorks. This is a citation management program you can use to store and reformat references. For example, you can select references in CSA Biological Sciences, send them to your RefWorks account, and then later have them printed out in the format used by the journal Ecology. These references will be stored as long as you like.
First, you need to set up a personal account from a computer on the campus network.
Later, log in and use the system to sort out your references, import or add references, add notes if you want, and then export in whatever citation format you prefer.
- To send references to your RefWorks account from a CSA database, mark the references you want to save, then click on "save to RefWorks."
- To send references from Web of Science, mark those you want to save, then click on "marked list" then "export to reference software." Save that file, then open Refworks, click on "import," browse to find the file you saved and click "import" at the bottom of the screen.
You can then move them from the "last imported" file into a folder of your choosing. Or you can choose items you want to format for a bibliography and put them in "my list" temporarily.
To print out references -
- click on "bibliography" and choose a citation style.
- choose a folder or "my list"
- choose whether to create a text, html, or Word document, then cut and paste into your paper.
- "write 'n cite" is a plug-in program for use with Word - not necessary, but an option.
- NOTE: When you import from different databases, you'll need to do some editing. Web of Science, for example, gives titles of journals in all caps. Genus and species may not be italicized. You need to edit your final works cited list to make sure the entries are all complete and consistent.
Web sites
If you've identified a published paper, you may be able to find a Web version of it by searching Google using the name of the principle author and the title of the paper. The following Web sites are also potentially helpful.
Biology Browser a collection of Web links selected by Biosis, a company that indexes biological research.
Invasivespecies.gov - hosted at the National Library of Agriculture, this part of the National Biological Information Infrastructure is a gateway of information from government-sponsored projects related to invasive species, including backround information, databases, and images.
Google Scholar attempts to limit a search to scholarly sources with mixed success. An interesting feature is the "cited by" link. Often the search points to articles that are not full-text. If you are on campus, you should see a link to a library database if it's in full text. If not, check our journal locator. If it doesn't show up there, submit an interlibrary loan request.
Scirus - a limited search engine focused on published science research abstracts (sometimes with full text links to articles) and Web sites with science content. Sponsored by Elsevier, one of the largest commercial science publishers.
Barbara Fister 9/06
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