Microbiology: MBI 201
Best bets for finding info on your topic
These are a handful of databases that I think will be most helpful to you as you search for information about your chosen topic. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about them.
- MEDLINE (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowThis is the MEDLINE interface from the publisher EBSCOhost. It will likely look more familiar to you than the Web of Science interface. The advantage to using this one is this interface will let you easily export [mostly] correct citations.
- MEDLINE (Web of Science) This link opens in a new windowThis is the MEDLINE interface from the publisher Web of Science. It likely will not look as familiar to you as the interface from EBSCOhost. The advantage to searching in this one is this interface will allow you to use both right- and left-hand truncation, and will give you access to Web of Science's powerful citation networking capabilities.
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowPubMed contains the entirety of the MEDLINE literature, as well as many additional resources. The downside is the relatively steep learning curve required to search effectively and efficiently, as well as the lack of a couple of powerful searching operators.
- BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new windowBIOSIS Previews also uses the Web of Science interface, and searches a different subset of literature than MEDLINE.
- Environment Complete This link opens in a new windowThis database uses the familiar EBSCOhost interface and contains lots of information related to ecological and environmental topics.
New to searching for literature?
This series of short videos will show you a few useful techniques you can use to improve your literature searches.
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.)
Using Journal Literature
Most indexes in biology will label at least two different types of research articles:
Primary article: A primary article will directly report the authors' research findings. The details of experiments they conducted will be reported. Most primary articles follow the "IMRAD" format familiar to students from writing lab reports: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion.
Review article: This type of article will summarize the research that has been done in a certain research area. Reviews can be a good entry point into reading on a particular research topic, since some terms will be defined, and important experiments and results discussed. Web of Science is an excellent database for locating reviews.
