Biology

Library databases are designed with the needs of students and researchers in mind.

• Allow you access to journals, magazines, and newspapers that are often not freely available on the Internet.
• Can often refine or limit a search to find just scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journals.
• May be focused on a specific discipline or subject area that allows for much more precise searching than the Internet.

The library has more than 300 databases on many subjects such as art, business, education, film, history, literature, music, sciences, and more. Whatever your major is, there is at least one database for you.

The most useful databases for Biology research have been gathered together on the Biology LibGuide page.

• Truncation: Use an asterisk (*) after the root of a word to search for all variants of that word. This expands your search by retrieving more results.
  • Example: theat* will retrieve results for theater, theatre, theaters, theatrical, etc.
     
• Phrase searching: Use quote marks to search for a phrase as a concrete unit, rather than as separate terms. This narrows your search to make it more precise.
  • Example: "text messaging", "college students", "job satisfaction"
     
• Booleans
  • AND: Use this to require that search results include all keywords. AND is usually implied in most database searches. This narrows your search to make it more precise.
    • Example: philosophy AND business to find results that include both terms, rather than just one or the other.
       
  • OR: Use this to indicate that search results must include any of a string of keywords. This expands your search by allowing you to search for multiple terms, only one of which must be included in a search result.
    • Example: books OR literature will retrieve results that include at least one of those keywords.
       
  • NOT: Use this to exclude a term from your search result. This narrows your search to make it more precise.
    • Example: Shakespeare NOT Hamlet will retrieve results about William Shakespeare and any of his writings except for the play Hamlet.