BMB 495--Researching your topic in biochemistry: Finding Scientific Articles

Web of Science

This scientific article database covers all areas of science.  Use this one if your topic applies to plants or is not biomedical, since those topics will be less well covered in PubMed.   

Example search: flowering hormone and plants

Find Review articles by refining your search at the left hand side of the page.  See Review under "Document Type". 

For full text, use the drop down menu--Find Full Text Options and click on the Find Text @MSU button. 

 PubMed

Use this database to search for scientific articles if your topic is  biomedical.  

1. Put in simple search terms or two-word search terms together.  This works much better than entering long phrases.  Sometimes, you might need to use quotation marks around a phrase like "multiple sequence alignment"
2. Always check the date of the articles you retrieve to make sure you are getting the most recent research.
3. Look first for review articles.  This will provide summary and background to help you understand the field.  You can filter your results to be just review articles by clicking Review on the left hand side bar. 
4. If you're getting a lot of results, try doing an Advanced search.  Tell it to search for your search terms in the Title.  Or put limits on your search by date or English language. 
5. This is an abstract database, not full text.  To find the full text or articles, look for Find Text @MSU link .

Example searches:

aspartame safety

"multiple sequence alignment"

If you have a citation for a specific journal or want to find a specific journal, search first:

MSU Libraries E-resources page--Search for the journal title in the e-journals box.

Science News

If you don't find the journal there, search for the journal title the MSU Online catalog to see if it is available in hardcopy.  Choose "journal/periodical title" in the drop down.