BIO 171: Introductory Biology: Ecology and Evolution

After you've found an interesting article in a database, just click the  logo to get the full text of an article.  MGetIt is a tool that links to the full text of articles.  If the Library doesn't have access to an electronic version of your article, MGetIt can also search the Library's catalog for the print version of the article or launch a request to get the article from another library. 

If you've already got an article citation from another source, you can use the MGetIt MGet It to find the article. Just fill in the form with all of the available information and click "Search". 

These three databases contain biology articles from scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Each database covers different journals so you will find different articles in each database. Searching multiple databases will give you the broadest range of articles on your specific topic. 

Use these tips for better search results:

• Use keywords.  Keywords are listed in each article's full description page. After finding a few articles that you like, check to see if they have any keywords in common, and try adding them to your current search.
• Limit by subject area. You can limit your search to one subject area. Search refinements are available on the left toolbar of the search results page. Under the Subject Area heading, checking one of the boxes will give only give search results in that subject area or discipline.  

Subject Areas: 

Web of Science and Biosis: use 'Evolutionary Biology' and/or 'Ecology'

Scopus: use 'Agricultural and Biological Sciences' and/or 'Immunology and Microbiology', 

• Limit by year. Remember that your essay assignment specifies that you must use articles published in 2000 or later. Specifying a range of years (such as 2000-2015) in your search will reduce the number of search results. 

This video from the University of Minnesota provides a brief but thorough overview of how to read primary scientific literature (journal articles). 

Scientific articles generally include these sections:

• Abstract: short summary of the article
• Introduction: outlines the background of the research question
• Methods: details of the experiments performed
• Results: outcomes of those experiments
• Discussion: summarizes the experimental findings and explains their significance

 The most efficient way to read a scientific article is not from start to finish but rather skip around to different sections in this order: 

1. Abstract
2. Discussion
3. Introduction
4. Results
5. Methods

After reading each section, ask yourself "Is this article relevant to my essay topic?" If the answer is yes, continue reading; if the answer is no, stop reading the article and look for new articles.

Primary literature refers to articles published in scholarly peer reviewed journals. Remember that for your essay, you need to use at least one scholarly peer-reviewed article.