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Library Research in Marine Ecology

Prepared by Anne Turhollow for Biology 517
Spring 2001

Library research is multi-step process. It consists of:

Step 1: Selecting a topic to research
Current journals and background resources can help you select a topic and provide you with starting points into the research literature.

Step 2: Identifying information about the topic
There are many computer databases available to help you find material that has been published about your topic. In addition to describing the best tools to use for marine biology research, this section also deals with locating that material either here in this library or elsewhere.

Step 3: Evaluating the information that you find
Information varies in quality and reliability. This section lists some of the questions you need to ask in evaluating your material.

And lastly Step 4: Presenting your results, either orally or written, and giving credit where credit is due
This section lists some books you can use to help in the writing process as well the basic style manuals for the field of biology.

Where you start your library search depends on what you already know and what you've chosen to research:

  • If you have a "classic" article or book and want to update it, start with the citation indexes.

  • If you've been given a topic and a list of references to find, go to the sections on locating journals or locating books.

  • If you don't have a list of references, but you do have a good sense of your topic, start with the section on searching for information in journals to select the best indexes for finding journal articles.

  • If you have a topic, but don't know much about it, start with the background resources to learn more about it.

  • If you don't have a clue about what you are going to research, than skim some recent journal issues. Current issues of journals in marine ecology can be found in the Current Periodicals area on the 1st floor of Love Library. Most electronic vesions of the journals will requires the use of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Some of the major titles are listed below:

    Biological Bulletin
    QH 301 B38 Periodicals
    Fulltext (back to 2001) and tables of contents and abstracts (back to 1990) are available.
    Journal of Coastal Research: JCR
    QH 541.5 C65 J62 Periodicals
    Online tables of contents and abstracts are available (back to 1998).
    Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
    QH 91 J6 Periodicals
    Fulltext is available (back to 1995).
    Journal of Phycology
    QK 564 J6 Periodicals
    Marine and Freshwater Research
    GC 1 A85 Periodicals
    Online tables of contents and abstracts are available (back to 1995). Fulltext is not available to SDSU.
    Marine Biology
    QH 91 M27 Periodicals
    Fulltext is available (back to 1997).

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