GEO 601 - Seminar in Research Techniques: Home

Finding information for your research interests

This guide provides some resources and other information that will help you find good information for your research topics. This page has direct links to databases and journals that cover broad geography subject matter. The other pages will have information about how to find different types of information, like journal articles and books. If you are having trouble coming up with relevant search terms, take a look at the Video Tutorials page of this guide, and if you want more information about how to properly cite the information you find, take a look at the Citations and References page.

Don't hesitate to reach out to one of your subject librarians if you get stuck or have questions that aren't answered in this guide.

If you are interested in general library information for graduate students, check out our Graduate Student Resources guide.

Get to Full Text with Find It!

Most literature indexes do not have the actual journal articles included within them. Instead, these indexes just contain information about the article, e.g. titles, authors, abstract.

When you find an article of interest in an index, click the "Find It" button by that entry to get to the full text. If we have a subscription, "Find It" will provide a link to the journal article. (Or if we have the print, it will provide a link to the catalog with the location and call number.)

(A few databases, like Academic Search Complete, include full text for some articles. These databases may allow you to search only for articles available in full text, but be aware that you are only searching a small portion of the articles we actually subscribe to.)

Best bets for finding research

Looking for journal articles? The databases listed below are some recommended options for tracking down mostly articles.

Environment Complete
Environment Complete is a leading full-text database for environmental studies. It provides hundreds of top environment journals and monographs covering agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, public policy, sustainability and other related subjects. It also includes millions of records and an environmental thesaurus.
Subjects include: agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, environmental law, and environmental technology. This is also a useful database for searching for "architecture sustainability" and "design sustainability".
Geobase (Engineering Village)
Geobase is a database, within Engineering Village, of indexed research literature unequalled in its coverage of the international geoscience literature. Topics include: earth sciences, ecology, geology, human and physical geography, environmental sciences, oceanography, geomechanics, alternative energy sources, pollution, waste management and nature conservation.
Web of Science (All Databases)
NOTE: If prompted, please enter your MU credentials. Do not select “Institutional Sign In.” Clearing web browser cookies and cache may also fix access issues
Use Web of Science to perform a cited reference search, where you can look up an article and see how many times it has been cited. Databases can be searched together or separate and include: Web of Science Core Collection: Science Citation Index (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1975-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2015-present), Current Chemical Reactions (1985-present), Index Chemicus (1993-present). Web of Science Additional Databases: BIOSIS Citation Index (1926-present), BIOSIS Previews, Current Contents Connect, Data Citation Index (1900-present), Derwent Innovations Index, KCI - Korean Journal Database, MEDLINE, Russian Science Citation Index, SciELO Citation Index, Zoological Record (1864-present). Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.