Biology Research Guide
Science Databases
Finding Articles
Databases and indexes are collections of citations to articles. Select a database that covers the subject area you are researching. Avoid databases with popular literature (i.e. Article First), if you need to find scholarly articles.
Consult the Help and About sections of each database for the most recent information about topical coverage and the types of information included.
Use lessons in the Information Literacy Tutorial created by the Five Colleges of Ohio for further suggestions.
- AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window
Citations for journal articles, monographs, theses, patents, and technical reports related to agriculture (1970-present).
- Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window
Critical reviews written by leading scientists. Volumes are published each year for disciplines within the Biomedical, Life, Physical, and Social Sciences.
- CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Citation information and full text for nursing & allied health journals with coverage back to 1937.
- Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
Journal articles and monographs on all aspects of Environmental studies.
- GeoRef This link opens in a new window
Citations for articles, proceedings, maps, and reports in geology and geosciences.
- Health Source : Consumer Edition This link opens in a new window
Consumer health information available from health magazines, pamphlets, and books.
- Health Source : Nursing/Academic Edition This link opens in a new window
Journal articles focusing on many medical disciplines, particularly nursing and allied health.
- MEDLINE (EBSCO with Full Text) This link opens in a new window
Medical information and articles including nursing, health care systems, pre-clinical sciences, dentistry, and veterinary medicine.
- PubMed This link opens in a new window
Citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
- JSTOR Global Plants This link opens in a new window
Database of digitized plant specimens and includes reference works and primary sources, such as collectors’ correspondence and diaries, illustrations, and photographs.
- Science Citation Index Expanded This link opens in a new window
Citation search database for scientific and technical articles with citation analysis tools.
- Consumer Health Complete This link opens in a new window
Health care and wellness information aimed at patients
General Databases
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive, multi-disciplinary collection of scholarly journals, ebooks, proceedings, and newspapers covering all academic areas of study.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Academic journal articles and books: primarily in the humanities and social sciences. Each journal has a “moving wall” for article access (time lag between the most current issue and the content at JSTOR)
- OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center This link opens in a new window
Full text articles for over 9000 journals from scholarly publishers.
Pre-Print Archives
- ChemRXivPreliminary reports which have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health related behaviour, or be reported in news media as established information.
- bioRXivFree online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. Articles are not peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset before being posted online.
- arXivarXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv.
Primary Literature in Biology
- Reading Primary Literature web tutorialA web-based tutorial that teaches students how to read and analyze the scientific literature. Includes practice questions and homeworks assignments based on passages from an actual research article. The tutorial was developed in collaboration with Jasmine Vaughan (former Librarian and Technology Consultant) and Kenyon students, and is aimed at beginning science students and non-science majors.
