BI 212: Investigating Biology

What is this page? This page was created to support your work in BI 212.  It includes information on how to find articles within the library and resources for improving your writing.

Searching for Journal Articles on a Topic

To search for a topic you will need to use an article database (not the ejournals list - more about using ejournals below).  

Find a good database.  Each database focuses on a particular subject. 

• If you know the name of a good database for your project already, use the alphabet key on the databases page to navigate to your database. 
  
• If you don't know the database name, use the subject pull down menu at the top of the databases page to choose your subject area.  I would suggest "biological sciences."  The right hand column lists a variety of biology-related databases.  Click on the red I to get more information about each database.  
• (BI 212 database suggestions below).
  

Break your topic down.  Article databases often work best when you put a single idea in each search box.  For example, the research topic "what is the best plant spacing for soybeans in Oregon" could be broken down into three main ideas - Soybean, plant density, and Oregon.  Each of these ideas would go in their own search box or be separated by "and."

Use Synonyms.  Scientists often refer to words in a variety of different terms than you may be used to.  Try different search words to come up with the best results.  For example, plant spacing could also be called plant density, crop density, or intraplant competition.

Find the article.  Not all databases have full-text articles, and sometimes we have the article available electronically, but it is not immediately available from the database with one click. If you do not see a PDF icon for the article within the database, you have 3 options -

• you can click on the "get this item" button which will help you discover whether or not our library has the article,
• copy the name of the journal title, open another tab or window to the library's homepage, click on the ejournals link and paste the name of the journal in the search box,  once you have opened the journal, find the right volume, issue and page number for your article,
• if the journal title is not in the ejournals list, paste the title into the library's catalog (use the title search) to see if we have it (either electronically or in print). 

Course Librarian

• Librarian: Hannah Rempel
• 
• 
  Phone - (541)737-9902
  Email - hannah.rempel@oregonstate.edu
  Contact me with any questions, or if you have problems finding articles or other resources for this class.

Three Suggested Databases for BI 212

Agricola - topics covered include agricultural research (including plant research)

Biological Abstracts/BIOSIS - topics focus on biology (including plant research), including biochemistry, endocrinology, genetics, microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, and physiology.

Plant Management Network - topics include plant research from journal articles, fact sheets, newsletters and web resources

Successful Citations

There are two parts to creating successful citations - 1) deciding what information to reference, and 2) recording the citation in an acceptable format.

1)To avoid plagiarizing and successfully include the best information from what you read, check out these tips suggested by your instructor:

How to Avoid Plagiarism

How to Paraphrase a Source

How to Quote a Source 

2)To successfully cite the articles, books or lectures that you refer to in your lab report in the correct format, use the following resources suggested by your instructor:

CBE Citing within the text of your lab report 

CBE Citations in the References section of your lab report

 

Finding Ejournals

Step 1: Identify specific articles of interest using the article database directions above.
Step 2:

• Click on the E-Journals list to see if the journal you need is available online (use the link above or go to ejournals in the center of the library's homepage under "quicklinks." 
• Enter the journal title (not the article title) in the search box at the top of the page. 
• If you get multiple results, choose the journal listing that has the date range that includes the time frame when your article was published. 
• Click on the blue publisher's link to get to the ejournal.
• Navigate to the correct volume, issue and page number for your article by using either the date links, the previous issues link, or the volume links (each ejournal interface looks a little different).
  

Step 3: If the journal is not online, find the call number for the journal(s) in which the article is found. (Use the library catalog for this step.) Find the article in the library and make a photocopy.

How to Read a Journal Article

The following websites give some tips on how to read scientific journal articles:

Reading a scientific article

How to Read a Journal Article 

My brief advice for reading journal articles is to keep a pen handy to write notes to yourself in the margins, and always write a summary of what you learned from the paper at the top of the paper or on a post-it note immediately after you finish reading the paper.