BIOL 101: General Human Biology - Montemarano

For your assignment, you will need to find the primary source mentioned in your science news article. Some science news articles will include a citation for the original source or even a direct link to the article. If you know the title of the article, you can look for it by searching the title in the Search All box on the Tomlinson Library homepage or in Google Scholar. If you do not have a citation for the primary source, look for information like the names of the authors, the title of the journal, and the year of publication. 

How to find a primary source without a citation

• Search the author's name and the title of the journal in a library database that covers science research. Academic Search Complete is a great place to start, but a list of other great science databases can be found at the bottom of this page
• Search the author's name or the journal title and a few keywords related to primary research article in the Search All box on the Tomlinson Library homepage or in Google Scholar
• Find the journal website and search the author's name or keywords related to the article. Once you find the title of the article, search for it in the Search All box on the Tomlinson Library homepage or in Google Scholar to access the full text

Tips to narrow down your results

• Use the Boolean operator AND to combine concepts or pieces of information. For example, use "and" to combine the author's name and a keyword (e.g. Harrington AND worm)
• Use quotation markers around phrases. For example, if you're searching for an article about box elder trees by Valberg et al., search Valberg AND "box elder tree". This will ensure that your search retrieves only articles that contain the entire phrase "box elder tree" 
• If you know the primary source was published recently, sort your results from newest to oldest 

To find primary research articles in other areas (kinesiology, environmental science, and more), explore our other subject databases