Research Guides: BIOT 100 Life Science for Elementary Educators: Articles in Databases

Finding Articles

Research Articles

Scientific research builds upon the work of others. Scientists share the methods, results, and conclusions of their research projects through research articles. Most research articles are considered scholarly and undergo the peer-review process. Through the peer-review process, experts in the field evaluate the reliability of the articles prior to publication. Research articles that have not undergone peer-review might not be reliable.

Review Articles

Review articles are another commonly used type of scientific literature. Authors of review articles read current research articles written by other authors then summarize or evaluate the information. Review articles often also undergo the peer-review process.

Scholarly Databases

Databases contain collections of articles. They can be searched by topic, title, author, or date to find articles that are relevant to your research. Many databases contain only peer-reviewed articles, or allow you to filter to only view peer-reviewed articles. Though many articles will be listed in more than one database, each database contains a different group of articles. Read the summaries of biological databases below, then select the database title to search for articles.

General Science

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Find articles on a wide range of subjects, including peer-reviewed articles.
Access Tips: Also available via mel.org
Google Scholar with EMU Full Text This link opens in a new window
Search for scholarly materials on any topic
Info type: scholarly articles, books, research reports, theses, working papers, cited sources
Access Tips: Use link above to get access to EMU subscriptions with Findtext+ links.
If this link does not work and you receive an error message from Google then use this alternate link to Google Scholar and also set your Google Scholar preferences to show EMU library access links.
Search Instruction: Google Scholar Video
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Search for articles in Science & Social Science journals and see which articles cite an article

World Wide Science
WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals providing one-stop searching of databases from around the world.
PLoS: Public Library of Science

General Biology

BioOne This link opens in a new window
Bioscience research journals from societies and other small publishers
Subjects: Biology, Botany, Ecology, Life Sciences, Natural Science, Zoology
Info type: scholarly journals
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Archive of back issues for many journals, some academic ebooks, and research reports.
Subjects: Covers most subjects
Info type: scholarly journals, professional periodicals, ebooks.
Access Tips: Usually the most recent 3-5 years are not available in JSTOR. However, EMU may have a current subscription. Check the Journal Titles search.

PLoS Biology
PLoS Biology is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Botany, Ecology & Field Biology

AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window
References relating to agriculture, from the USDA's National Agriculture Library.
Access Tips: Also available via mel.org

International Plant Names Index
IPNI records come from three sources: the Index Kewensis (IK), the Gray Card Index (GCI) and the Australian Plant Names Index (APNI). The about page summarizes basic information about each data source and the procedures followed in merging the records so that the user can understand the origin and the limitations of the combined dataset.

Ornithological Research Archive (SORA) This link opens in a new window
Search or browse back issues of key ornithology journals.
Subjects: Birds, Ornithology
Info type: scholarly journals
Access Tips: Does not include recent journal issues.