Library Research in Parasitology

Prepared by Anne Turhollow for Biology 588
Fall 2002

Searching for Information

Information can be found in a variety of different formats: journal articles, books, government reports, etc. Which format you use depends on the type of information you are looking for. And each format tends to use a different set of tools to find them.

Journal articles serve as the main form of scientific communication. They can be produced more quickly than a book and cover very specific topics.

Journal articles come in a variety of types:

Professional or scholarly or research

Written by specialists for other specialists, they are extremely technical in nature.

Review

Writtten by specialists but at not quite a technical level as research articles. They provide an overview of current research.

Popular or expository

Written to explain an area of research to the non-specialist.

Books tend to be overlooked in the sciences. They take much longer to produce then an article, but they provide a much broader perspecitive. Books can give you a better sense of context and historical development.

Web resources vary widely in their content and reliability. You can find everything from research articles and government reports to someone's vague ramblings on a topic. Use with care!