Research in the Sciences

• The Basics
• Peer-reviewed Publications
• Finding Books
• Finding Articles
• Useful Tips and Tricks for Materials
• Good Sources of Information
• Controlling Your Research
• Helpful Links on Researching and Writing in the Sciences
• Citing Information and Remembering Copyright
• Preventing Plagiarism

 The Basics

 There are 3 major types of literature:

• Primary – information published for the first time, usually journal articles and conference proceedings
• Secondary – comes from the primary literature and is reworked into a monograph (book), textbook, or similar
• Tertiary – taken from primary and secondary literature. Well-established factual information. Includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference items.  

Peer-reviewed Publications

You’ll hear this a lot! Peer review means that the publication has undergone a review by other experts in the field. Can also be called “refereed”. This process helps to ensure a quality publication. Journal home page or their inside front cover will usually tell you if the journal is peer reviewed. Some books are also peer reviewed.

Finding Books

• Use the Find Books link under the UNT Library Catalog heading on the Libraries home page www.library.unt.edu
• Use keyword if searching on a topic or title if you know the name of the book
• Keyword searching tips: use only a few specific words joined by “and”. For example, if searching for items on careers in chemistry, use careers and chemistry. If you don’t get any results, remove one of the terms or use alternate terms.
• Author searching: use last name first, e.g. Twain, Mark
• Note the Call Number, Location and Status (is the item available?) of the book

Tips:

• If item is in “Remote Storage” use the Materials Delivery Request Form—access by clicking on the “remote storage” link in the UNT Library Catalog or Library Material Delivery Request from the lower right on the catalog pages
• If the UNT Libraries do not own the item, use interlibrary loan, a free service. Click on the  Interlibrary Loan link on the Libraries home page

 Finding Articles

Searching for Articles on a Topic

• Use a journal article database. Select the Find Journal Articles link from the Libraries home page.
• Use the Browse Indexes and Abstracts (library lingo for journal article databases) by Subject or use the “Federated Search Engine” which searches a number of databases at one time
• Search tips: enter search terms/keywords, use truncation (*) to find alternate endings of words, such as butterfl* to find butterfly or butterflies; use synonyms or words that mean the same or similar as to your search term; try removing some words if you don’t find results.
• If you don’t find something in 15 minutes, contact us. We can help! Also, try a different database or different keywords
• Most databases have links to the full text online (complete article). Not all articles are available online or connected through the database (see below)

• Use the Find Books link on the Libraries home page
• Click on the Journal Title tab and enter the title/name of the journal (not the article title)
• Look for the volume and issue of the journal you need. Check all electronic options as the dates covered may be incorrect. Journal article may be in electronic form or you may need to use our print collection
• If in print, check the location of the journal: it could be in the Willis, Science and Technology, or Discovery Park libraries, or in Remote Storage
• If the Libraries do not have the article, consider using interlibrary loan

Useful Tips and Tricks for Materials

Libraries’ Home Page:

• www.library.unt.edu - using your EUID and password (your Eagle Connect), you can access any resource from this page in the Libraries, on campus or off campus.
• Use http://www.library.unt.edu/services/for-special-audiences/offcampus/er-tips-and-tricks to find out how to connect to the Libraries’ resources from off campus.

 Patron Account (in the Catalog)

• Find out what books you have checked out: click on the View Your Account/Renew Materials from the right hand side navigation menu on the catalog home page. If you haven’t used the patron record option before, type in your last name, first name, then your UNT ID. Click on Display record button. The next screen will let you choose a Personal Identification Number (PIN). Your PIN needs to be 4 numbers
• If you have already set up your patron record, enter your name, ID and PIN

 Renewing Books

• You can renew your books online
• Access your Patron Account using the View Your Account button on the right side of the catalog home page or the Renew Your Materials link from the Libraries home page 
• Select the books you want to renew

 Searching for Journal Names in the Catalog

• Check for Journal Names using both the Journal Title and Title search option, then keyword
• With the increase in electronic journals and letting the journal providers enter their own records in the catalog, it is essential to check journal names using both searches as some journals appear only in one option You may miss electronic versions if you only use one search and some vendors of electronic journals provide more volumes than others

What to do if UNT doesn’t have the journal or book?

• Use Interlibrary Loan if the UNT Libraries’ don’t have the book or journal that you need
• Click on Interlibrary Loan link from the right hand side of the main catalog page or use the Interlibrary Loan link in the middle of the Libraries home page
• If you haven’t set up an account with the ILLiad system, you need to click on the Create an ILLiad account link at the bottom left of the list. The next screen will bring up a form. Fill in the blanks and submit the form
• If you already have an account, click on the Log in to your ILLiad account link on the lower right hand side of the screen. Enter your username and password
• Choose the most relevant  option from the list, usually either Request a Journal Article or Request a Book
• Fill in the blanks and submit the form. The more information you give us, the faster we can get the item for you
• Average time is one to two weeks for delivery
• You DO NOT need to find another library that has the item

Good Sources of Information

AccessScience (encyclopedia) – useful for terms, definitions, synonyms etc. Available from Electronic Resources page under the A.

SciFinder Scholar – the absolute best journal article database to find articles that are on chemistry or chemistry-related information. Should work excellently from home. You need to set up a personal account using your UNT e-mail. Remember to respond to the return e-mail within 24 hours. Tends to work better if you set up the account on campus. May need to use vpn.unt.edu then type in the URL of the Libraries’ home page http://www.library.unt.edu and then select SciFinder (this often saves conflict with our proxy server. There are only 3 connections so it gets busy in the afternoons. If this becomes a burden, let me know.

Inspec and Compendex - best for physics and engineering. Also good for inorganic chemistry items. Available from the I or C list on the Electronic Resources page. Good to search both together – while there is some overlap, each database has its own unique articles. Set up a free account to access special features, including tags and search alerts.

Biosis Previews – best source for biological information (except for zoology and medical). Available from the B list on the Electronic Resources page.

Zoological Record – best source for zoology information. Same interface as Biosis Previews and Web of Science. Available from the Z list on the Electronic Resources page.

Science and Technology Collection – good for more general information. Uses the familiar Ebsco interface.

Medline – best for medical related information. Use either Medline via Ebsco from the M list  (links to our catalog and uses the easier Ebsco search interface) or Medline – Pubmed (more advanced search but does not link to our catalog)

Web of Science - good alternative database if SciFinder Scholar is busy or not working. Covers significantly fewer journals but includes those that are supposed to be “the best of the best”. Also use for citation searching – when you have an article you want to follow and see who has cited it (included it in their bibliography) or you have an author that you want to see all papers they’ve published (remember that this is a pretty exclusive database though so you’ve missing a lot of the literature). If you create an account with Web of Science, you can set up search alerts (e-mails of articles matching your search terms), table of contents alerts, and citation alerts (when papers you select are cited, you will be notified)

Science Direct. Although best used to provide journal articles, you can also use it to search for journal articles when SciFinder is busy. It has a lot of journals but not all so SciFinder is still best. By setting up an account, you can set search term alerts, tables of contents alerts, and citation alerts.

Controlling Your Research

Research can be time-consuming and thus you want to make the most of it! Using Refworks (a “bibliographic management system) helps you keep track of your citations and articles, adds citations to your papers as you write (write n’ cite) and creates your bibliography in your preferred format (this isn’t 100% accurate so you’ll want to review for accuracy).

Refworks is available through the Electronic Resources page under the R list. You’ll need to create an account (be sure to keep the welcome letter as it contains the “group code” which you’ll need to use to log in from off campus.

*Helpful resources for Refworks

https://www.library.unt.edu/ris/tutorials/refworks/introduction-to-refworks/

http://www.refworks.com/tutorial/ direct from Refworks – includes both print and video formats.

*Search Alerts

Search alerts are an excellent feature of some databases. These allow you to set up topic alerts, author alerts, citation alerts, and tables of contents alerts which come into your e-mail or RSS feed reader. Look for the “create your account” link, create an account, and step up your alerts. Check out https://www.library.unt.edu/ris/email-alerting-services and https://www.library.unt.edu/ris/rss-feeds-for-unt-libraries-electronic-resources

Helpful Links on Researching and Writing in the Sciences

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/paper.html informative site guiding you step by step on writing a paper. The second portion of the site provides a superior guide for quality writing. Check it out!

http://www.earlham.edu/library/content/resources/course/biocite.htm discusses the different types of literature and effective writing strategies (including avoiding plagiarism)

http://www.leeward.hawaii.edu/lib/tutorials/bioskills/Biolibraryskills_files/v3_document.htm excellent site on finding a topic, broadening and narrowing topic, researching topic, and writing papers.

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html very useful site for step by step writing of a research report or paper.

http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWgeneral.html brief site on writing journal articles

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/sciences.html excellent site from University of North Carolinia on writing in the sciences. Also links to information on developing scientific posters, reports, articles, and more! Great site!

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html comprehensive site for writing theses and dissertations.

Citing Information and Remembering Copyright

http://www.library.unt.edu/research-tools/guides/chemistry/citations-in-the-sciences Citations in the Sciences offers a quick guide to the common citation styles in the sciences

http://www.library.unt.edu/research-tools/guides/chemistry/reference-sources/writing-guides-and-style-citation-manual links to helpful sites on using the American Chemical Society style

http://library.osu.edu/help/research-strategies/cite-references/cse extensive guide on using the CSE (Council of Science Editors)/CBE (Council of Biology Editors) style

http://www.ncwiseowl.org/zones/copyright/students.html good site for learning about copyright from a student perspective

http://library.williams.edu/copyright.php comprehensive yet understandable site on copyright

Preventing Plagiarism

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/1/ Great site for learning what is and isn’t plagiarism

http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml Another excellent site

As well as turnitin (which is one of the top plagiarism checkers), there are some online items:

http://www.duplichecker.com/

http://plagiarisma.net/ (also checks non-English writings)

http://www.articlechecker.com/

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help further. Have a great semester!

Beth
beth.thomsett-scott@unt.edu