Researching a Topic
a. Finding
articles in journals (PubMed database):
Under the Òuseful linksÓ section, from my web page (http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biology/cwhitezi/default.html) you can access the National Library of Medicine-Advanced PubMed Search. This will allow you to search for articles in numerous journals, spanning many areas of biological research. You can enter keywords to bring up articles relevant to your topic. You can refine your search in the following ways:
i. Search by author
ii. Search by journal
iii. Search by date (you can limit to only recently published articles)
iv. Hit the ÒRelated ArticlesÓ link next to an article you know is helpful. This will lead you to other articles of interest.
Please ask me for a quick demonstration on how to search using the PubMed database. Your paper should be based upon primary journal articles so it is a necessity that you learn to use this database.
Other sites for microbiology sites, journals, professional organizations, and governments institutes are linked from here. The CDC and NIH have informative websites and some journals (Emerging Infectious Diseases, MMWR) are published electronically.
A review gives an overall summary and status report on the progress in a specific research area. Because reviews are printed in journals that are published frequently, they tend to be more up to date than books and less lengthy. Reviews are found in:
Realize that books are inherently going to have older information in them as compared to journals since it takes years to get a book through the writing, editing, and publication stages. However, books can be helpful to get you started and give you the background necessary to more fully understand the area of focus for your paper. Use the library catalog to find books, but also browse through the books. It is often difficult to guess the actual keywords that will bring up the perfect book. The microbiology and immunology books are shelved close to one another in the Young Science Center. The genetics/molecular/biotechnology books are in a different section that you should also check out.
4. Use
an internet search
You can type in key words and you may be able to find additional sites with useful information. However, beware of the information and/or the source. There is no peer review on the internet nor is it necessarily updated. You will need to be able to cite the information so make sure it comes from a credible source and that the information can be traced back to a peer-reviewed journal.