Searching the Scientific Literature

There's no such thing as a current textbook. For the real "scoop" on what's happening now in science, you need to go to the source: the scientific literature. One important goal of North Central's science program is to help you learn to find, read and understand research articles published in scientific journals.

Acceptable sources depend on the kind of writing you're doing and may include:

Primary sources found in scientific journals. These are research articles in which researchers report their own data (look for lots of figures and graphs) and discuss its importance.
Reviews may also be found in journals as well as in books and are written for scientists. Here, the authors summarize data that have already been published on a particular topic.
General scientific sources: textbooks, science magazines (e.g., Scientific American) and books for the general public are often used to provide general background on a topic.

Encyclopedias, Google searches, Wikipedia, etc. are useful to help you understand your topic but usually are not acceptable sources for written work. Be sure to discuss acceptable sources with your instructor if you're unsure of his/her requirements.

Electronic searches make finding the article you need much easier than in the past. The library subscribes to several databases that can help; here are some of the most important ones:

PubMed Huge public database covering 1000s of biomedical journals. This is the single best source for searches on any topic related at all to medicine (genetics, cell biology, microbiology, physiology, etc.)
BIOSIS If your topic is not related to medicine (botany, zoology, ecology, etc.), this database is the best place to look.
Synergy All articles in journals published by Blackwell. Most would also be listed in PubMed.>
ACS Journals All journals published by the American Chemical Society. Most of the biological articles would also be listed in PubMed.
Annual Reviews Review articles on a wide variety of topics.
ASM Journals All journals published by the American Society for Microbiology. Most would also be listed in PubMed.
Science Direct Database covering many journals on a variety of topics, but with limited availability of articles.

Electronic access increases the number of journals available to you. North Central's library subscribes to many journals in electronic form only, and many others make their articles available to the public at no cost after some period of time (usually 6 or 12 months). We maintain a partial list of journals from which you can download complete articles in PDF format at no charge. Additional lists of freely available journals can be found at HighWire and PubMed Central.

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