LibGuides: Library Resources for Biology: Finding Articles

Why use periodical articles?

Articles that appear in periodicals--such as newspapers, magazines, or scholarly journals--are good resources to use in your research. You can use periodical articles to support an argument, to explain a topic, or to provide additional perspectives on an issue.

Why do I have to use a database to find an article?

The library subscribes to databases to provide access to periodical articles. The content contained in these databases are typically not freely available on the internet. You have to pay to get access to them. But with an article database, the library is paying for that access for you. That's why you have to go through the database to get the articles.

Don't ever pay to download an article from the internet--talk to a librarian, and we can more than likely get you a copy of the article at no charge to you. That's what libraries do!

Reference Books

Reference books, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias can help us learn new terms or look up a biography of a scientist.

Oxford Reference Online: Premium This link opens in a new window
A collection of language and subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works published by Oxford University Press. All titles in the collection are cross-searchable; individual titles may be searched separately as well.

Best Bests for L101

SCOPUS This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a citation and abstracting database that provides comprehensive coverage of the peer-reviewed journal and conference literature in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts & humanities.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides access to thousands of scholarly journals in all disciplines, as well as magazines and newspapers. Coverage dates from 1975 to the present.

Scientific American
Scientific American is the authority on science and technology for a general audience, with coverage that explains how research changes our understanding of the world and shapes our lives.

Additional Biology Databases

BioMed Central: The Open Access Publisher This link opens in a new window
BioMed Central's portfolio of 198 journals includes general titles such as Journal of Biology alongside specialist journals (e.g. BMC Bioinformatics, Malaria Journal) that focus on particular disciplines . All the research published by BioMed Central's journals is open access, but BioMed Central also provides access to various additional products and services that require a subscription.
BioOne This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to high-impact bioscience research journals focused on the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
MEDLINE (Ovid) This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more.
PubMed Central This link opens in a new window
U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Includes citations, abstracts, and the full text of journals published by Elsevier in medicine, natural sciences, technology, and social sciences.
PLoS This link opens in a new window
Provides the ability to search across all PLoS journals for articles on biology, clinical trials, genetics, and medicine.
GreenFILE This link opens in a new window
Includes abstract and indexing information for scholarly and popular journals and government publications about environmental concerns. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
Nature This link opens in a new window
Full-text and images from the popular science journal. We have access from 1869 to present.
SciFinder-n (formerly SciFinder Scholar) This link opens in a new window
Allows access to a wide diversity of research from many scientific disciplines, including biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, and more. SciFinder Scholar includes researched covered in Chemical Abstracts and articles currently being indexed.
ACCESS NOTE: SciFinder-n requires registration. Register for an account here.
Guides to using SciFinder Scholar are available: https://www.cas.org/training/scifinder.

Finding An Article with a Citation

You've found an article you are interested in locating. You need to see whether or not the Library has that journal full text.

We are going to use the "Full-Text Journals A-Z Search."
Underneath "Find journals by title or ISSN," next to "Title Begins With," type or cut and paste the title of the Journal (not the article title) in the search box.
The results list shows what years of the Journal are covered full-text in different databases, or in Print down on the Library's first floor Journal section. Click on the year you need.
On the Journal's homepage. Look for your year, volume, issue, then pages and article title.