1. Familiarize yourself with the jargon and narrow down your topic
Course reserves (including textbooks), required readings, and reference resources (https://libguides.uvic.ca/biology/reference) are a great way to familiarize yourself with a topic.
Once you identify a topic and find some preliminary information, you need to locate more "peer-reviewed" or "scholarly" (www.uvic.ca/library/research/tips/scholvpop/index.php) information.
2. Read the sources located in the preliminary research to determine:
what research questions have been generated from the topic
from what perspective you may approach this topic
3. Find articles using databases
Search using key concepts and keywords in databases like Library Search (https://www.uvic.ca/library/index.php), Google Scholar and Web of Science (https://webapp.library.uvic.ca/databases/details.php?id=80&return=letter__W) databases.
Use the "Search Web of Science (WOS)" (https://libguides.uvic.ca/biology/webofscience) tab of this guide to find journal articles on your topic.
Make an appointment with Monique (https://libcal.uvic.ca/appointments/monique), for more help with starting your research and locating articles.
Reliable, integrated, multidisciplinary research. Information on emerging trends, subject specific content and analysis tools. Includes Science Citation Expanded®, Social Sciences Citation Index®, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index™.
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.
bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. Articles are not peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset before being posted online. However, all articles undergo a basic screening process for offensive and/or non-scientific content and are checked for plagiarism.
Medline contains all areas of medicine, including dentistry and nursing from more than 9,000 titles. Corresponds to the print indexes - Index Medicus, Index to Dental Literature, and International Nursing Index.
Aquatic resources provided by a growing international network of information centers monitoring over 5,000 publications. ASFA is a component of the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Information System (ASFIS), formed by four United Nations agency sponsors of ASFA and a network of international and national partners.
Zoological Record (ZR) is the world's oldest continuing database of animal biology. More than 140 years of experience has made ZR a respected resource for: Information from every field in animal biology; projects in academic, government, and commercial organizations; Reliable and in-depth information searches. The world’s leading taxonomic reference and oldest continuing database of animal biology.
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