Research Guides: BIOL 100: Designer Genes: Finding Journal Articles

What is a Database?

What is a database?

The library databases contain journal articles and other scholarly information. Sometimes a database will contain the entire journal article, and sometimes it will only contain an abstract. Databases are searchable by subject, keyword, author, and more. They can be seen as the tool that you use to search and access scholarly publications, such as peer-reviewed journal articles.

Finding Journal Articles

Best Bets for BIOL 100

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles (including peer reviewed), books, book chapters, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage: 1887-present.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
Collection of databases devoted to disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. See titles of individual databases for further information. Coverage: Varies by database.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary sciences, with some humanities and social sciences. Journal articles. Coverage: 1995-present.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Medical topics relating to research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, dentistry, nursing, and health care. Free database from the National Institutes of Health. Citations to biomedical literature from the MEDLINE database, journal articles, and online books. See also Medline. Coverage: 1951-present.

Constructing a good search

Not finding anything?

Try a different database! You can find our full list of library databases on Swem's website.
Try different search terms! Not finding anything for 'Sugar'? What about 'Sucrose' or 'Glucose'?
Ask a librarian! You can make a research appointment for some one-on-one help, chat with us when the research desk is open, drop on by for a visit, or even shoot us an email. We love to help!

Accessing Articles

How to Access Articles

You may notice that the database doesn't always provide you with a PDF of the article -- sometimes it will just give you an abstract. In that situation look for the "Find it @ W&M' button, which will take you back through our library website to get you access to the article. If it's something that we don't have, you can request it by interlibrary loan. They'll send a PDF of the article straight to your inbox, typically within a few days!