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Library Research in Economic Botany
Prepared by Anne Turhollow for Biology 460
Fall 2004
Locating Journal Articles
If you are working from a list of citations, journal article citations
can be identified by the fact that they end with volume and page numbers.
Sometimes the title of the article is omitted.
Paine, R. T. 1969. A note on trophic complexity and community stability.
Amer. Nat. 103:91-93.
Grosholz, E. D., and Ruiz, G. M., 1995, Marine
Biology, 122, 239-247.
Use the Citation
Linker to see if SDSU has the article either
electronically or in print.
Searching for Information in Journals
Indexes or periodical databases allow you to create a custom list of
articles on your topic. You will usually need to search more than one
index to find all the articles you need. The traditional
indexes take you backwards in time. Citation indexes
allow you to trace an article or book forward in time. Once you identified
an article as existing, you will then have to track
it down.
Indexes to Journal Articles
- Biosis
Previews
- Off campus access requires current RedID number
- 1998-to date
- Major index for the biological sciences; covers over 8,000 journals
as well as conference proceedings and books
- Look for "Find Full Text" button to connect to
online full text, the PAC (for print information), or Interlibrary Loan (more about this below)
- Search by author, taxonomic classification, scientific name, and keywords
- Pre-1998 is found in print, Biological Abstracts, QH 301
B37 (1970-1997 in Reference, 1926-1969 in 5th Floor Periodical Stacks)
-
Agricola
- 1970s to date
- Consists of two databases for the field of agriculture; one for books and
one for journal articles
- Not linked to SDSU holdings
- Medline
- Off campus access requires current RedID number
- 1950 to date
- Major database for the medical sciences.
- Can limit to a subset of journals for the fields of alternative
and complementary medicine, so check here for research articles on
medicinal herbs.
- Look for "Find Full Text" button to connect
to online full text, the PAC (for print information), or Interlibrary
Loan (more
about this below)
- If SDSU version is busy, can use PubMed but the links to journal
articles will not work most of the time
- Article
First
- Off campus access requires current RedID number
- 1990-to date.
- Indexes articles from 14,000 journals in all disciplines.
- Can only search by author, article title, keywords in article titles.
Click on  to
search for the full text of the article.
- Ingenta
- Off campus access requires current RedID number
- 1989-to date.
- Similar to Article First but covers a slightly different
group of journals.
Using Citation Indexes
Web
of Science is a unique tool that allows you to perform a "Cited
Ref Search" and trace a key article or book forward in time.
The SDSU version covers 1998 to the present. This means that while
you can do a "Cited
Ref Search" for material published at any time, the results will only
show you citing articles published in 1999 or later. You can also search for
current publications by author or keyword. This database also has the journal
linking software; look for the "Find Full Text" button.
For earlier years, you will need to use the print version, Science Citation Index (Q 158.5 S34 Reference). Each year or range of years consists of four sections:
- Citation Index - the section where you look an older article and find the
articles that have cited it during the year or years covered.
- Source Index - the section that gives a complete citation for the new articles
listed in the Citation Index.
- Corporate Index - where the new articles are indexed by the primary author's
institution.
- Permuterm Subject Index - a keyword index of the titles of the new articles.
In addition to Web of Science, some of the publisher's journal databases also
provide this feature internally to their own publications. These include Elseiver's
ScienceDirect and
Highwire Press.
Searching Tips
| Search Type |
Phrase/Adjacancy |
Truncation |
Wildcard |
Connectors |
Limits |
| Examples |
keystone species |
gastropod* finds gastropods or gastropoda |
wom#n finds woman or women |
To broaden or narrrow your search |
Standard restrictions (usually done with checkboxes. etc.) |
| Interface/Database |
|
|
|
|
|
| Ovid/Biosis |
phrase enter as is; ADJ# (# equals a number; ADJ4) words should
occur within that distance |
$ |
? (must have at least 2 characters to left) |
AND
OR
NOT
|
Language
Year
Taxonomic classification
Organ system |
| Ovid/Medline |
phrase enter as is; ADJ# (# equals a number; ADJ4) words should occur
within that distance |
$ |
? (must have at least 2 characters to left) |
AND
OR
NOT
|
Language
Year
Journal subset
|
| PubMed |
phrase in quotes |
* |
None |
Enter in caps
AND OR
NOT
|
Journal sets
Year
Document type
|
| Agricola |
select from drop-down menu |
? |
None |
AND
OR
NOT
|
Language
Publication type
Year |
| Web of Knowledge / Web of Science |
phrase enter as is; SAME for same sentence |
* |
? - zero or one character (at least one character to left)
* - zero or more characters (must have at least three characters to left)
|
AND
OR
NOT
|
Database
Year
Language
Document type
|
Can't Find Your Journal?
- Check your spelling.
- If you did not wait until the last minute, fill out an Inter-Library Loan (ILL) request.
This will take about one to two weeks. A copy of the article will be
mailed to your home or office. The service is free for students, faculty,
and staff of SDSU.
- If there is not enough time, repeat your search at UCSD. If UCSD has the journal, you will need
to drive over and make a copy of the article.
This page http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/guides/class/biol460journals.shtml is maintained by C. Anne Turhollow.
Please use our Feedback Form
for your questions, comments, and suggestions.
File saved 08/03/07 10:15 PDT
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