Lake Forest College Donnelley and Lee Library Ask Librarian Hours Interlibrary Loan

BIO 120: Organismal Biology

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for your Adopt an Organism and Food Trip Projects

Primary & Review article databases     More article databases
...for your BIO 120 projects
General Tips for Searching Databases for this project:
  • Enter your organism's Latin name in the scholarly databases.
     
    Enter your organism's familiar name in the popular press databases.
     
    Enter both forms of the organism's name, separated by "OR" in databases with both scholarly and popular press publications.
  • For databases that have limited full-text, click the Find It button: wherever it appears in a database.
  • Avoid the browser's green Back Button. Instead, to prevent loss of data, use a database's navigation buttons.
Primary Research and Review Journal Articles

Current Contents indexes articles published from 1998 to the present, including some scholarly journals not available in PubMed.

The asterisk (*) is used to extend a root word search to include all forms of the word.

BioOne has full-text biological, ecological and environmental science articles from small societies and non-commercial publishers. BioOne also has abstracts from other, similar journals, for which you may request a photocopy via the ILLiad interlibrary loan service.

Academic Search Premier (from EBSCO) You may check the box to retrieve articles from scholarly journals only.

Or, on the Search Results page, click Academic Journals.

JSTOR has full-text of important scholarly journals, in PDF, from the first date of publication to within 2-5 years of the present.

To avoid loss of data, use the gray PRINT and DOWNLOAD icons, do not use "file" or "save" at the top of the browser. Instead, use the icons in the Acrobat Reader, a couple of inches below the top of the page and at the top of the document you want to print or save.

Each question mark added to a search term allows for one additional letter, e.g, parameci??? will search for paramecium, parameciums, paramecia.

FirstSearch Databases:
AGRICOLA , BasicBIOSIS, MEDLINE, and ArticleFirst. Use quotes to search words as phrases.

Use the asterisk (*) to extend the root of a word to include other endings.

BasicBIOSIS and AGRICOLA require a username and password.

Use AGRICOLA for plant organisms or other agriculturally related species.

PubMed Central Full text, free from the U.S. government.

PsychInfo (from Ovid) has citations, abstracts, and links to primary research articles conducted on animals to observe learning and sensing capabilities.

Highwire Press Free access to science articles from Stanford University, generally written for the experts in the field, most of which are primary source articles.

Primary & Secondary Sources

FirstSearch Databases:
BioDigest, Periodical Abstracts (PerAbs), and WilsonSelectPlus

Use quotes to search words as phrases.

Use the asterisk (*) to extend the root of a word to include other endings.

BioDigest requires a username and password.
Secondary Sources

Lexis-Nexis (Academic Universe)

Academic Search Premier (from EBSCO) On the Search Results page, click Magazines or Newspapers

Use * for a term with various endings.

EBSCO Animals Articles give a general overview.

Images do not appear to be available for reproduction for academic use.

Grzimek's Animal Encyclopedia, 2nd ed.(call number Ref QL7 .G7813 2003)
is a 17 volume set, in the Reference area, on the Main Level in the Library.

The set is divided as follows: vol. 1. Lower metazoans and lesser deuterosomes, vol. 2. Protostomes, vol. 3. Insects, vol. 4-5. Fishes I-II, vol. 6. Amphibians, vol. 7. Reptiles, vol. 8-11. Birds I-IV, vol. 12-16. Mammals I-V, and vol. 17. Cumulative Index.

Grzimek's should be a useful starting point for secondary sources. Check the bibilography at the end of each entry in the Encyclopedia for reference to important scholarly sources.

Other books on the Reference Area shelves immediately below Grzimek's are also useful for this assignment.

You may want to browse the lower level stacks in these call number areas behind the main stairs: QH (Natural History and Biology), QK (Botany), QL (Zoology), QR (Microbiology), and also possibly SB (Plant culture).

Or search the Library's catalog.

Try Browsing by Subject for Zoology, Animal, Botany, or Bacteria, rather than relying on finding an entire book devoted to your organism. Then look in the book's table of contents or index for your organism's name.

Or try a keyword search for your organism's class or order. The websites listed below will help you identify your organism's pedigree.

For a large selection of more recently published books, which you can check out of the Library, click the Repeat Search in the I-Share catalog link. Interlibrary loan requests for books take 2 - 10 days to arrive. There is no fee unless you lose the book.

    Be sure to credit the source of the image, and be sure that you will not be violating copyright by publicly reproducing or displaying the image; ask permission, and document that it was granted.


    Fig. 1." Development of male antennae and expression of ApolPDE during pupal-adult stages of the wild silkmoth...."
    Used with permission, © 2005 PNAS.

    PNAS Online(the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) has high resolution images if you click on the [Full Text] link to an article. PNAS has images of higher quality and greater credibility than any you will typically find via the Internet search engines. For example, see figure 1.  Permission is granted to use the images for educational purposes.

    Scientific American Archive Online has some startlingly beautiful images for posters; permission to use for such projects is granted on the site.

    NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library (http://images.nbii.gov/) —site is developed and maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey. Images are either in public domain (copyright free) or have permission granted for use provided the creator is credited.

    Science has a wealth of high resolution images. You must request permission to use these images for display purposes (e.g. for Student Symposium)..

    Google's Image Search can be useful, but the images are typically best when viewed online (as in a PowerPoint presentation) and are rarely high enough resolution for printing anything larger than a postage stamp. Look for images where at least one dimmension is 500 pixels wide or greater. Many may be copyright protected.

    Wikimedia Commons is an off-shoot of the Wikipedia project. Images and other content are contributed by any photographer or graphic designer or other artist who has the authority and desire to offer copyright-free image or sound files. Give a link to the image in Wikimedia Commons and, when available, the name of the creator of the item.



    Some notes about Images and Copyright and Academic Honesty,     using the CalPhotos site as an example—
    CalPhotos:Animals    , part of the Berkeley Digital Library Project.

    Some photographers, such as Tom Greer, and Joseph Dougherty, indicate on the site that anyone may use any of the images (large as well as small) for academic purposes provided they are acknowledged and/or notified.

    To search for images by a specific photographer, use the CalPhotos Custom Query form; under Query options, for "photographer," enter the photographer's name; on the same search form, for Type of Photo, you may select one of the Animal families.

    Read Using the Photos in CalPhotos for a concise explanation of copyright law and using online images, which would apply to other sites' images as well.

    For additional information, the Library of Congress' website page, The Learning Page-Getting Started: Copyright answers many questions without legal jargon.

    Copyright is different than plagiarism, but both involve academic honesty.

     



For this class, you will use the APA (American Psychological Association) Style.

If you are uncertain about how to use a style, the Writing Center and the Reference Librarians can assist.

 

Citing your images — An example of a citation for an image as it would appear on an APA-Style References page.

Fig. 2.
Note. B. pertussis
© c. 2003 J. L. Carson
Used with permission. ¹

Carson, J. L. (c. 2003). "B. pertussis." [Online image] Retrieved on October 9, 2006, from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/ articles/09_03/whooping_cough.php

A web address alone is not enough information to locate an item on a redesigned website.

For more information, look at the images section of the College's APA style guide, and look at the examples on this page.

Accurate citation of sources is a good way to avoid plagiarsm and its consequences.