BI 213 McKee: Finding and Using Journal Articles
Reading (and Writing) Journal Articles
Journal articles are written in a specialized style. When you understand the structure, you'll be able to quickly skim articles to determine which are worth your time to read. There are a couple of good, short tutorials about journal articles.
Journal articles are generally organized in the IMRaD format: introduction, methods and materials, results, and discussion. The following resources will help you get the most out of your journal reading and paper writing time.
- Science Buddies: How to Read a Scientific PaperBasic, but thorough, introduction to scientific papers.
- Research ConversationsThe University of Central Florida Libraries clearly illustrate the connection between journal articles and scholarly conversations. They explain peer review in this video.
- Writing Scientific Reports handoutfrom the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This handout is incredibly detailed and specific.
Databases for Research
Databases provide access to journal articles and sometimes videos and additional content.
New to scholarly science journals? Read Science Buddy's How To Read a Scientific Paper, a short tutorial to help you get the most out of your research.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new windowFull text for more than 4,500 scholarly social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural journals. 3,700 are peer-reviewed.
- Biological Science Database This link opens in a new windowFull text articles from 280 biology journals, many of them peer-reviewed.
- ScienceDirect This link opens in a new windowFull text for more than 1,000 peer-reviewed life sciences, Health Science, physical sciences, and engineering journals with citation information for thousands more. Look for the "Full-text available" indicators to view articles online. View the Science Direct handout.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar searches the web for scholarly articles, reports, books, and other materials. If using Google Scholar from a PCC campus, you can access full text articles. If PCC has access to an article, a "Find it @ PCC" link will appear to the right of the search result. Click “Find it @ PCC” to go to the library catalog where you will be offered a choice to view the article. From home, you will need to set your Google Scholar preferences to access PCC Library resources. See How to Search PCC Library on Google Scholar for directions on how to set your Google Scholar preferences at home.
- Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition This link opens in a new windowScholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. Coverage of nursing and allied health is particularly strong. Also includes Merriam-Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowFull text of about 600 scholarly journals in the arts and sciences, from their earliest issues up to 3-5 years ago. This is where you'll find the classic experiments of the past!
- MEDLINE This link opens in a new windowCovers the international literature on biomedicine, including allied health. Citations available from 1965 - present; some full text.
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