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Research Materials: Ecology and Biology--The Modern Synthesis

Handouts and Research Guides used by librarians in information literacy sessions. For more help, look in the Guides by subject.

Recommended Books To Use

Databases

Academic Search Complete--A scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,600 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,500 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and more than 13,200 other publications. Updated daily.
 

CQ Researcher--articles about current issues.

 

GreenFILE--scholarly, government, and general-interest titles pertinent to the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to minimize these effects. Open Access full text for more than 9,100 items plus indexing and abstracts for more than 612,000 records.

 

JSTOR--multidisciplinary content from over one thousand academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as monographs and other materials. (See below for document on how to search JSTOR.)  MyJSTOR allows you to save citations and searches and set alerts to receive updates on new journal issues. 

 

Science and Technology Collection--more than 820 leading full- text journals covering relevant aspects of the scientific and technical community, plus indexing and abstracts for more than 1,750 journals. Topics include aeronautics, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, computer technology, geology, aviation, physics, archaeology, marine sciences and materials science.

Search Terms

These are just a few possible search terms. When searching, it can be more helpful to search some of these as subject headings instead of doing a simple "word or phrase" search. This can differ from OPAC to database to another database. Use the Advanced Search feature demonstrated in the library instruction class for both areas to find which work better as subject headings.

species, ecology, plants, animals, biology, natural history, genetics, theory, philosophy, hybrids, speciation, species diversity, Plato, Platonist, Aristotle, Aristotelian, Darwin, Lamarck, Lamarck's theory, Charles Lyell, natural science, adaptive evolution, evolutionary theodicy, Ernst Mayr, biospecies, genetic drift, genotypic cluster species concept, Jerry Coyne, Allen Orr, polyploidy, Ronald Fisher, wild-type species, eugenics, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley

Journals

To see some of the journals available to you in JSTOR, for instance, go to JSTOR. Click on "Browse" at the top of the page, then "By Subject" in the drop-down menu. From the list of categories that appears, find "Science and Mathematics" and choose either Ecology and Evolutionary Science or Environmental Science. This takes you to a list of journals in JSTOR that are available to you in one way or another. (Check the legend to see what the markings beside the journals mean.)

 

JSTOR is not always the only one with access to a journal. It is a good idea to check in the NSU Journal List to see if access to other years is available somewhere else.

 

For example:

Southeastern Naturalist--In JSTOR you have access to citations from 2002-2009 with external access to 2010-2012. If you look up Southeastern Naturalist in the NSU Journal List, you will find there is access to it in Academic Search Complete with full text from 2002- present.

 

The American Naturalist--In JSTOR you have access to citations from 1867 to 2013. If you look this one up in NSU Journal List and follow the Search Your Catalog link, you will find that the Library has this journal in bound and loose journal form on the third floor in Serials & Media.