On this page:

1. Formulating a basic search strategy	5. Oceanography websites
2. Finding books	6. Lesson plans
3. Finding Articles: Indexes and Abstracts	7. Evaluating web resources
Full text journals	8. Citing electronic and print information
4. California web sites	9. More web sites

 

Formulating a basic search strategy

Introduction

• It takes time! Searching indexes and databases usually takes more time than anticipated. If the information is not what you expect, you may have to reformulate your topic.

• Each of the encyclopedias below contains topics on biodiversity which may give you some ideas or review a topic.

 

TITLE	LOCATION	CALL #
Encyclopedia of biodiversity	Reference	QH541.15.B56 E53 2001
Encyclopedia of ocean sciences	Reference	GC9 .E57 2001
Encyclopedia of environmental biology	Reference	QH540.4 .E52 1995
Environmental encyclopedia	Reference	GE10 .E58 1994
Encyclopedia of the environment	Reference	GE10 .E53 1994
The Cambridge illustrated dictionary of natural history	Reference	QH13 .L56 1987
The Oxford dictionary of natural history	Reference	QH13 .O9 1985

Browse Journals for articles that capture your interest. Popular magazines such as Nature, Science, Natural History, Smithsonian, Discover, and Scientific American publish significant numbers of papers on biodiversity.

Title	Location	Call #
The American naturalist	Ground floor, periodicals	QH1 .A5
BioScience	Ground floor, periodicals	QH301 .A18
Discover	Ground floor, periodicals	Q1 .D57
Nature	Ground floor, periodicals	Q1 .N2
Natural history	Ground floor, periodicals	QH1 .N13
Scientific American	Ground floor, periodicals	T1 .S5
Smithsonian	First floor, periodicals	AS30 .S6
National wildlife	Ground floor, periodicals	SK351 .N35
New Scientist	Ground floor, periodicals	Q1 .N52

ProQuest
    - Many full text articles with images. May be useful for background info such as Scientific American  and Natural History articles. You may browse the tables of contents of issues.
Titles of most of the earth sciences journals (many full text) in Proquest

 

Bioscience Audubon Canadian Journal of Botany Canadian Journal of Chemistry Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Canadian Journal of Microbiology Canadian Journal of Physics Canadian Journal of Zoology Earth Island Journal Earth Journal Earth Science Earth Ecological Monographs Ecology

Endangered Species Update Environment International Wildlife Journal of Mammalogy  Journal of Marine Research Marine Biology National Wildlife Natural History The American Midland Naturalist The Condor The Ecologist Wilderness Wildlife Conservation Wildlife Monographs Wildlife Society Bulletin

Once you have an overview of your topic and some search terms, here is a helpful worksheet to develop your search strategy.
Using the worksheet, follow these steps:

   1.  Break research topic into concepts.
   2. Generate synonyms for each concept (an initial search can be a great help).
   3. Generate broader terms and categories.
   4. Generate narrower terms and limiters.
   5. Develop a search phrase.
   6. Refine your search based on results.

Identifying your topic from the Tisch Library and the Department of Biology of Tufts University

The Seven Steps of the Research Process How to Identify and Develop Your Topic from the Cornell university Library
 

Finding books

OASys
-  (the catalog of books and other material in the Occidental Library,) LINK+, Melvyl, and World Cat are all catalogs you may search for books (more info about finding books).OASys is the catalog of books and other material in the Occidental Library. A word search is usually a good way to start.
Although you may not wish to read or cite whole books, most will have useful and often extensive bibliographies which include references to articles.

Word Searches
     A word search is more general and selects any record that has your word in the title, subject headings, or notes.
Title Searches
     Search for journal titles to see if Occidental owns the journal.
Subject headings
     Subject headings which may prove useful in searching the online catalog or magazine indexes are:

Marine invertebrates -- Pacific Coast (U.S.)

Intertidal ecology -- Pacific Coast (U.S.)

Seashore biology -- Pacific Coast (U.S.)

Animals -- Habitations

Marine mammals -- California

Southern Marine mammals -- Pacific Ocean

Marine Ecology California

Education:

ERIC
    - combines CIJE and RIE into one electronic database. 1966- Available on FirstSearch.

AskERIC (http://ericir.syr.edu/About/)
    - (available free on the web)  a personalized Internet-based service providing education information to teachers, librarians, counselors, administrators, parents, and others throughout the United States and the world.

CIJE - Current Index to Journals in Education.  Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1975-
 (Journal articles)
  Reference Index Area   L 11 .A12 C87

RIE - Resources in Education. Washington D.C.: U.S.G.P.O., 1975-
(Reports, summaries, compilations, and curricular materials)
Reference Index Backfile  ED 1.310:

Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors,12th ed. by James E. Houston. Phoenix, Ariz: Oryx Press, 1990.
 (Official vocabulary used in ERIC databases)
  Reference Index Area   Z 695.1 .E3 E3 1990

Education Index. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1929-
 Reference Index Area    L 3 .E42
 Also available on FirstSearch as Education Abstracts, 1984-

Biology

BasicBIOSIS
    - on FirstSearch which indexes about 350 serial publications back to 1988 and is a subset of the full Biological Abstracts

Biological and Agricultural Index
    - which indexes publications back to 1983.

General Science Abstracts
    - 1984- General Science Index covers some 140 titles. Coverage includes astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, earth science, environmental issues, mathematics, medicine, physics, and zoology.

AGRICOLA
    - 1861- covers every major agricultural subject, including agricultural engineering and marketing, animal breeding, entomology, enFinding Articles: Indexes and Abstracts - Education: vironmental pollution, farm management, foods and feeds, pesticides, rural sociology, social sciences, veterinary medicine, and water resources.

Geobase
    - Records covering the worldwide literature on geology, geography, and ecology.

GeoRef
    - Records about geology and earth sciences from the American Geological Institute.

Zoological Record (located in library reference index area) contains items relating to the natural biology of animals. -The index is divided into 20 sections such as: 6B - Annelida, 9- Mollusca, 15- Pices, 1-~-Reptilia and 19 - Mammalia as well as a comprehensive section.

Finding full text articles
The library has online subscriptions many online full text journals and connections can be made through OASys as well as from this page. Also see our Full Text Electronic Journals page for specific titles and to view the most recent additions of full text titles.     See also: Complete, Searchable Periodicals List  (Oxy Only)
This searchable database combines what our library offers online with what it offers on paper.
 

California web sites

Specialized databases for California may also exist on the Web such as:

Western Wetland Flora - Field Office Guide to Plant Species (http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/othrdata/westflor/westflor.htm)
    - Three hundred species of vascular plants. Information includes, photos, distribution maps, habitate and description

CyberFlora California (http://www.calflora.org/content_overview.html)
    - is an experimental test of methods that allow merger of California flora biodiversity data sets, each searchable as an independent entity, into a single, searchable resource.

California's Coastal Resources (http://ceres.ca.gov/ceres/calweb/coastal.html)
    - The California Environmental Resources Evaluation System - CERES - is an information system developed by the California Resources Agency to facilitate access to a variety of electronic data describing California's rich and diverse environments.

Oceanography of the Southern California Bight (http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/scbweb/homepage.htm)
    - This web site, the Oceanography of the Southern California Bight, exists to inform people interested in learning about the Pacific Ocean offshore of southern California. Found here are satellite and other images with accompanied by brief descriptive text passages that provide insights into the various natural and anthropogenic processes and phemomena that occur in this region. For now, there are sections on  CIRCULATION,   POLLUTION and BIOLOGY.features ongoing research by Paul M. DiGiacomo and Benjamin Holt

Southern California Bight Study (http://coast.ocean.washington.edu/SouthernCal/CABS.html)
    - University of Washington data from research performed by Dr. Barbara Hickey and her staff at the University of Washington. This is a link on the Santa Barbara Channel - Santa Maria Basin Circulation Study
Center for Coastal Studies (http://www-ccs.ucsd.edu/data.html)

Scripps Institution of Oceanography  (http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/)
    - Home page has links to an "education area" as well as library and resources

California Vegetation (http://endeavor.des.ucdavis.edu/cnps/)
    - A Manual of California Vegetation  from The California Native Plant Society
You may especially be interested in the Field Sampling Protocol.
 

Oceanography websites

    - At present, EOSDIS manages data from NASA's past and current Earth science research satellites and field measurement programs, providing data archiving, distribution, and information management services. To this end, EOSDIS provides a spectrum of services: some services are intended for a diversity of casual users, some are intended only for a select cadre of research scientists chosen by NASA's peer-reviewed competitions, and many fall somewhere in between these extremes. Try in particular the Educational Tools page whose links provide a wealth of information on tools related to Earth Science, of which EOSDIS is a major contributor

EDUCATION RESOURCES FOR OCEANOGRAPHY AND EARTH SCIENCES (http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/)
    - from The Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC), an element of the Earth Observing System Data Information System (EOSDIS), responsible for archiving and distributing data relevant to the physical state of the ocean.

Joint Oceanographic Institutions (http://www.joi-odp.org) Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI) is a consortium of U.S. academic institutions which brings to bear the collective capabilities of the individual oceanographic institutions on research planning and management of the ocean sciences.
    - including ODP: From Mountains to Monsoons Teacher's Guide (PDF file)

Academic Info - Oceanography (http://www.academicinfo.net/ocean.html)
    - An independent directory compiled by Mike Madin, a library specialist

Bridge (http://www.vims.edu/bridge/)
    - online resources for marine science education from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. See also the Bridge in the Lesson plans section below.

National Oceanographic Data Center  (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/)
    - The NODC holds physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data collected by U.S. Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (primarily the U.S. Navy); State, and local government agencies; universities and research institutions; and private industry

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) (http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html)
    -NASA's GCMD is an online card catalog of data sets covering just about every scientific area of global change research. The Learning Center page of the GCMD is the place to go for all sorts of data and information about global environmental change.

GeoData Information Sources (http://www.cgrer.uiowa.edu/servers/servers_geodata.html)
    -WWW sites (hundreds!) about digital cartographic and environmental data.Compiled by Mark MacLennan of the University of Iowa Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research

UN Atlas of the Oceans (http://www.oceansatlas.com/index.jsp) Not only a data base, but a knowledge bank as well, the UN Atlas of the Oceans provides extensive information on the world's oceans and seas, gathered by various national and international agencies, including the United Nations; NOAA; and HDNO, the Russian Head Department of Navigation and Oceanography. Featuring maps, images, statistics, and other factual information gathered on the oceans, the site offers a sea of compelling topics, among them uses of the oceans and waterways, recreation and tourism, transportation and telecommunications, human coastal settlements, and the exploration and exploitation of natural resources. Also contained within the site are a number of stand-alone but interrelated modules about the oceans: how they were formed, how they are changing, and their dynamics. Sure to please curious minds are the site's depth profiles and its presentations on earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.

Tides Online (http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/tidesonline)

More data sources:

• El Nino Theme Page (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/nino-home.html)
• National Buoy Data Center (http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/index.shtml)
• New Jersey's "Underwater weather" (http://www.thecoolroom.org)The COOLroom.org is maintained as a public service by the Rutgers University Coastal Ocean Observation Lab, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences.The c.o.o.l. classroom includes tutorials and real-time data activities. Learn about state-of-the-art oceanographic research, the scientists involved, and the collaborative environment at the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab.
• Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (http://www.gomoos.org) GoMOOS is a national pilot program designed to bring hourly oceanographic data from the Gulf of Maine
• ShipMates (http://www.bigelow.org/shipmates) More from the Gulf of Maine. Educational activities from this site http://www.bigelow.org/shipmates/activities.html
• MBARI Oasis moorings (http://www.mbari.org/oasis) Data from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
• Using the viewer for data from TESY (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/dees/ees/tut_data.htm) This site is intended to provide a learning environment for college level students interested in learning about the Earth and how the Earth system works. It is designed to support three courses offered by the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. This first release emphasizes the use of large data sets in helping students understand the Earth system and how one can learn about it through data exploration.
• Project NOPP Drifters (http://www.drifters.doe.gov)Use data from ocean drifting buoys to integrate ocean science into your classroom science and math instruction. Enhance your lessons with suggested educational activities and curriculum materials developed and tested by teachers, or you can use only the data, background information and reference images.

The Bridge (http://www.vims.edu/bridge/lesson.html) Links to the lesson plans section. The Bridge is supported by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, and is sponsored by the National Marine Educators Association and the national network of NOAA/Sea Grant educators. Links to numerous real-time data sets (http://www.vims.edu/bridge/data.html) which can be incorporated into your lesson plans.

Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, Virginia Institute of Marine Science (http://www.vims.edu/adv/ed/labact.html )

NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program (http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/sse/education/activities/9to12activities.html) -Classroom Activities - Grades 9 to 12 The National Marine Sanctuary System is an office of the National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Ocean Planet exhibition (http://educate.si.edu/lessons/currkits/ocean/main.html), created by the Smithsonian Institution to share with the public what recent research has revealed about the oceans and to encourage ocean conservation. This online booklet of lessons and activities adapts several themes of the exhibition for use in the middle and high school classroom.

DLESE  Digital Library for Earth System Education. It is a grassroots, community-based effort involving teachers, students, and scientists working together to create a library of educational resources and services to support Earth system science education.

More web sites at the bottom of this page.
 

Evaluating web resources(from Finding the "Good Stuff")

The web has made it possible for anybody on the Internet to publish. Web sites rarely go
through the exacting review process demanded by editors of print resources. It is
therefore extremely important to critically evaluate information you find on the web.
Ask yourself questions that take into account the purpose, authority, scope, accuracy,
and presentation of the web site before deciding whether to use it in your research.

• Purpose - intent of the page helps determine content and biases
• Authority - level of expertise can tell you whether facts and opinions deserve acceptance
• Scope - the range or extent of the topic at hand tells you whether information presented is adequate
• Accuracy - errors or sloppiness in one area might point to errors in the whole
• Presentation - readability, appearance, and how easy it is to find information within a site indicate usability

Writing Research Papers & Citing Sources from OWL - Online Writers Lab at Purdue University. Includes APA and MLA citation styles.

The library owns many style manuals with extensive examples for citing articles, books, chapters and more.One current reference is:
MLA style manual and guide to scholarly publishing / Joseph Gibaldi  in Reference   PN147 .G444 1998

Finally, do not hesitate to ask Reference librarians for help.
 

More web sites

Dian Teigler, Science Reference x2817
July 8, 2002