Using Library Databases and Other Tools to Find Articles Reporting Scientific Findings
For science classes, you will often be required to find scientific articles. Often, your instructors will require that you find articles that are reporting original research. You will want the original scientific report, including the information you would need if you were going to replicate the experiment or study. But sometimes these articles can be difficult to find and identify.
Characteristics • List of Useful Databases • ScienceDirect College Edition
• Science Resource Center • EBSCO Databases • A Useful Database Trick • Google Scholar
Characteristics of Most Scientific Articles
First, let's look at how to identify an article reporting scientific findings. Take a brief look at the article. In general, scientific articles are:
If an article is only 2 pages long, has no references (bibliography), and you understand it without concentrating and perhaps looking up some of the words, then it is not presenting scientific research. It's just talking about it.
If your article looks good so far, then take a closer look. Most scientific research is divided into distinct, easily recognizable sub-sections. Here are some of the subheadings to look for:
If the article has three or more of these subheadings, then it almost certainly is an article presenting original scientific research.
For comparison, here's an example of an article presenting scientific findings about the possible connection between cell phones and brain tumors (if you're off-campus, you'll have to log in with your last name and L#):
"Long-term use of cellular phones and brain tumours: increased risk associated with use for >=10 years"
And here's an example of an article on the same topic that is not presenting scientific findings:
"To Call or Not to Call?"
Useful Databases You Can Try
Not all Library databases provide access to scientific articles. Your best bet might be to begin with ScienceDirect College Edition. But others may be better for your particular topic. To access all of our databases, go to the LCC Library website and click on "Research Databases." Here's a list of all LCC Library databases that include articles presenting scientific findings:
Let's begin with ScienceDirect College Edition.
ScienceDirect College Edition
Using ScienceDirect, you can access articles from more than 1,500 journals in the health, life and physical sciences.
| To access scientific articles, begin by clicking on the "Advanced Search" link to the right of the search boxes. Then click on the grey "Journals" tab. |
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| Enter your search terms in the boxes below the Journals tab you clicked on (not the search boxes at the top of the page). Notice here I put an asterisk (*) at the end of the word "compost," to get all words that begin with those letters (such as composting or composts). This technique is called truncation. To get more relevant results, change "All Fields" to "Abstract, Title, Keywords" in the "within" drop-down menu. |  |
| ScienceDirect includes articles that have the entire article right there ready to email or print (called full-text articles). But it also includes links to articles that only have the abstract, that is, just a summary of the article. To get only full-text results, choose "Subscribed journals" in the Source drop-down menu, and uncheck the "Include Articles in Press" box. | To get only full text articles:  |
| In order to get scientific journal articles, you should also select "Article" under "Limit by document type." Not all the results will be presenting scientific findings, but many will. The articles will be arranged in order of date, with the newest ones at the top. |  |
In order to be sure that the article is presenting scientific findings, be sure to look for standard sub-headings in the body of the article: introduction, methods or methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, and references.
Science Resource Center
From the "Research Databases " page, click on Science Resource Center. When prompted, click on the "Proceed' button.
| Notice that there's a list of subjects on the page. You can click on one of them to find a list of articles related to that topic |  |
If you have a more specific idea of what you are looking for, use the search box at the top of the page. When you search, make sure to do a "Keyword Search," not a "Subject Search."
| If you want to get even more specific about your search, click on the "Advanced Search" button. In Advanced Search, you can can limit your search to full-text and/or articles from peer-reviewed journals only. You can also search in particular parts of the records, like the title or the source (the name of the journal). Notice that here I am truncating both of my search terms with a *, to get articles with other words that begin with the same letters. |
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| You can also search in particular parts of the records, like the title or the source (the name of the journal). But as an initial search, it's probably best to use the drop-down menu to select a "keyword" search. Notice that here I am truncating both of my search terms with a *, to get articles with other words that begin with the same letters. Try specifying that you want the word "method*" to appear somewhere in the "full-text," or body of the article. It may make it more likely that your results will be presenting scientific findings. |
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Scroll down on the page and check the "Full-text documents" and the "Peer-reviewed journals" checkboxes. This will make it more likely that you will get what you want: |
The database will return with articles organized into folders:
"Items 1-7 of 7 found" is referring to just magazine articles. (Science Resource Center calls some items, such as book reviews and some reports, magazine articles, even though technically they are from peer-reviewed journals).To find articles that are more likely to be presenting scientific findings, click on the "Academic Journals" tab. Not every article is going to be reporting original scientific research. You'll still have to pick through them.
| Your best case scenario is any article that has the words "Statistical Data Included" to the right of the title. Those articles will almost certainly be presenting scientific research. Look for the icon of a page with writing on it. That means that the entire article is available online to read and print out. |  |
| Your second best case scenario is any article that has the word "Article" to the right of the title. Those articles might be presenting scientific research. Again, look for the icon of a page with writing on it to find full-text articles. |  |
EBSCO Databases
You may be able to find scientific articles using other databases, particularly EBSCO's Academic Search Premier and Environment Complete. EBSCO is the name of the company we purchase many of our databases from. If you are researching a health-related topic, be sure to check both Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition and CINAHL with Full Text, which are also EBSCO databases.
When searching using any EBSCO database, be sure to click on the Advanced Search link and then check the "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" box:
Once you get some results, use the same criteria outlined above to identify the articles that present original scientific research.
A Useful Database Trick
One trick I mentioned earlier that you can use in many of the databases is to add the words method* and/or result* to your search. For example, in Environment Complete I performed the following advanced search and got over 50 high-quality articles:
| I checkmarked the "Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals" box, Also check to make sure that the "Full Text" box is checked. |  |
Here's what I am telling the database to do:
Here's just one of the yummy articles I found using the above search:
"Recent Climate Warming Forces Contrasting Growth Responses of White Spruce at Treeline in Alaska through Temperature Thresholds"
(again, if you're off-campus, you'll need to log in).
Google Scholar
If you aren't having much luck finding what you need in Library databases and don't have time to ask for help from a librarian, give Google Scholar a try. It is similar to the regular version of Google, but it searches for scholarly literature. Google Scholar will find information in books and other materials as well, so you'll still need to comb through the results carefully. And not all of the articles that you find will be available full-text via Google Scholar. But if you have the citation of the article, you might be able to find the full text of it in one of the Library databases. I guess you can call it coming around full circle! I'll show you one example:
There were many tempting hits, but when I clicked on this one the abstract made it sound so good I had to have it:
I can't get the full text through Google Scholar. So I check to see if we have access to it in one of our databases. All I need is the name of the journal it was published in, in this case the Quarterly Journal of Economics. I open another browser window and go to the LCC Library website. I click on the big "Research Databases" link in the middle of the page. Then I click on the "Magazine Journal Locator" link on the left. I paste or type in the name of the journal I'm looking for, like so:
And yes, we have it in two different databases:
Be sure to check the dates. In this case, we're fine because the article I want is from the year 2000, and I should be able to find it in the Business Source Premier database, which has coverage of that year. So I click on it. Then, if I have more detailed information about the date, like the month or the volume number, I can just click on the relevant year. Or I can click on the "Search within this publication" at the top right. That's what I usually do because it can be faster. So Business Source Premier opens, and it fills in the name of the journal for me, with the code JN, for journal. Leave the code there. Then, and this is very important, add the word "and," then the first 5 or 6 words of the article you want in quotes:
In this case, I found my article. It was the only one that popped up as a result of the above search.
If you are unable to find a scientific article that addresses your area of interest or are having trouble using one of our databases or other tools, be sure to ask a librarian for assistance. After all, your tax dollars and student tuition and fees pay for our salaries!
