BIOL 483: Senior Thesis

When you are trying to identify primary sources in the sciences, think first-hand, contemporary, direct evidence or data, original research.

Primary sources in the sciences could be conference papers, dissertations, letters, lab reports, studies, peer-reviewed scholarly work all with original research. This work often includes an abstract, an introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections. 

Reviews and review articles can also be helpful as these could lead you to primary sources.                                    Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay     

There are several tools that can help determine if an article is peer-reviewed.

• First, you can check to see if the journal itself is peer reviewed by going to the journal's website. A quick Google search will get you there. (Hint: Type in the journal and peer reviewed). 
• Warning: Not everything within the peer-reviewed journal is peer reviewed (book reviews, opinion pieces). 
• Additionally, you can use the library databases to help limit by peer-reviewed articles. However, this will greatly limit your results.