Researching Biology

Articles for discussion:

• Ground Squirrels Chew Snakeskins to Mask Their Scent - From the New York Times
• Donning your enemy's cloak: ground squirrels exploit rattlesnake scent to reduce predation risk - From the Proceedings of the Royal Society B

The research process (diagram)

Understanding your topic

Resources to help you understand the concepts and vocabulary of your topic:

• Specialty biology encyclopedias available through Milne Library - Library homepage -> Resources by subject -> Biology -> Encyclopedias.
• Wikipedia.org - Yes, really. While you can't use this as a reference in a paper, it is often useful to clarify terms and help you discover related concepts and vocabulary.
• Biology Browser - From Thomson Scientific, a large publisher of science books and journals.

Picking the right place to search

• Article databases available through Milne Library - Library homepage -> Resources by subject -> Biology
• The Global Biodiversity Information Facilty - Digitizing and making biodiversity data (from around the globe) available.
• PLANTS Database - Standardized information from the US Department of Agriculture about North American plants.
• Possibly useful: Scirus - A search engine that searches scientific resources on the web, including institutional repositories. It may be a bit difficult to separate the primary literature from the secondary literature in your results list.

Searching effectively

• Understand how the database searches for information.
  • Does the database use AND, OR, NOT
  • Can you use wildcard characters like * or ?
• Use thesaurus terms, if applicable.


• Understand how your results are presented to you.
  • By what the computer things is most relevant?
  • In date order?
  • In order of when the record was added into the database?
• Finding other relevant literature by looking for recent citations.

 

Cool Science Sites!

Have you found some additional sites you'd like to share? Post them to del.icio.us using the tag coolsciencesites.