CHY 298: Introduction to Chemistry Research Course Guide

Scientific Communication

Research and publication "cycle"

Simplified model. The Internet can serve as an informal communication tool, a medium for hosting "traditional" scholarly communication, and a source of new types of scholarly publications ("eprints").

Some common types of scientific literature

journal articles (including reviews)	conference/symposium/meeting proceedings	technical reports
patents	dissertations/theses	standards/specifications

Most of the patents of interest to chemists are "utility" patents, which can cover objects, processes, or substances.

Searching the Internet (and Elsewhere)

Numerous Internet search engines exist besides Google. There are also several "scholarly" search engines, including Google Scholar.

Searching unrestricted portions of the Internet is useful for finding

• preliminary information on a highly specific topic
• opinions that might not be expressed through traditional scientific communication channels
• (occasionally) the full text of items unavailable locally.

General database search tips

• Try alternative terminology: chlorine free as well as environmentally friendly.
• Try alternative spelling: minimising flavour as well as minimizing flavor.
• Truncate (use a wildcard) to get variations on a word: environment* to find environment, environmentally,... Don't drop too many letters when you truncate. Use internal or left-handed truncation options, if available and appropriate.
• Combine terms, using

• Try combining ANDs, ORs, and truncation: environment* and (friendly or safe) and bleaching.
• Apply limits or refine your results--language, date, publication type, etc.

Notes on author searching

• Search by first initial as well as full first name
• Be flexible with prefixes (de, von, etc.), possible prefixes (Declerq or de Clerq?), hyphenated names (Lopez-Anido or Lopez Anido or LopezAnido or Anido?), and compound names (Mauricio Pereira da Cunha)
• Consider reversing names (Wu Li or Li Wu?)

Databases: Finding References to Journal Articles (and Other Items)

The primary database for chemistry available at Fogler Library is SciFinder, but there are many other databases worth searching as well. Select databases with appropriate subject coverage and scope for your topic. Also consider the database indexing (if any), and its non-subject aspects: publication formats included, geographic and linguistic coverage, years covered, and update frequency.

Selected databases for chemistry available from Fogler Library

Biomedical and Agricultural Sciences	Physical Sciences and Engineering	Interdisciplinary
Agricola AGRIS BIOSIS Previews CAB Direct FSTA: Food Science & Technology Abstracts Health and Safety Science Abstracts MEDLINE PubMed TOXNET	Analytical Abstracts Compendex (Engineering Index) GeoRef (plus the "In Process" and "Preview" databases) Inspec MathSciNet	ProQuest Dissertations & Theses - Full Text Web of Science (or Web of Knowledge)

SciFinder

Content

• CAplus (references)
• MEDLINE
• Other chemistry content

Getting started

• Register for an account
• Abide by the License Agreement
• Use the SciFinder logout to end a session, instead of just closing your browser

Search notes

• Avoid using "and" for Boolean AND within search queries. Use a preposition ("of," "with," etc.) instead: bleaching with green.
• Use "or" within search queries: friendly or safe or green
• Automatic (but imperfect) truncation
• SciFinder provides some alternative spellings for authors' names to account for non-Roman characters like umlauts

Finding/obtaining journal articles

See Finding Items at Fogler Library. For items not available within Fogler Library or from the library Web page, see Getting Items from Other Libraries.

Questions?

Nancy Curtis, 581-1679 Science & Engineering Center, 581-1691

Reference Desk, 581-1673 Ask A Librarian

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Created by: Nancy Curtis | Revised: 01/22/2013