Advanced Placement Biology

Recommended Resources for Getting Started

While not all content here will be peer-reviewed, the following resources can be a great place to get started on your research.

Passwords: The Gale databases use your geographic location for authorization, so do not require a password when used in Massachusetts. Other databases require a password. Get a bookmark from your friendly school librarian, or download the passwords from this website (authorized users only).

• • Science in Context (Gale)

  • Reference materials, magazines, journals, multimedia, and websites, on topics important in science today.

  • Science Online (Facts on File)

  • Definitions, biographies, news, and even some basic experiments in all major scientific disciplines.

• Wikipedia

  • Surprised to see a teacher recommend Wikipedia? While you'll need to verify any claims you see, Wikipedia can be a useful tool to familiarize yourself with new vocabulary or find additional resources from the citations.

Recommended Resources for Scholarly Articles

Once you have basic familiarity with your topic, you'll be ready to tackle peer-reviewed, scholarly papers. While the science databases above have some, these databases offer more articles, often in better formats.

• • Academic OneFile (Gale)

  • Your source for peer-reviewed, full-text academic articles from leading journals in a wide variety of subjects, from science and technology to the arts and theology. Pay particular attention to well-regarded general scientific journals such as Science, Nature, and The Journal of Clinical Investigation, which may be more accessible than more specialized publications.

  • PubMed Central (National Library of Medicine)

  • Free archive of biomedical and life sciences articles from the United States National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM). Why are these published journal articles available for free? It's all thanks to a nifty piece of legislation known as the NIH Public Access Policy (2008), which requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts from any work funded by the NIH (i.e., taxpayer dollars) upon acceptance for publication. These articles are made accessible to the public via PubMed Central within a year of publication, "to help advance science and improve human health."

Scholarly vs Popular Sources

What's the difference? Why is it important? This presentation should help.

Search Tips

Combine keywords to get articles that match each of your important concepts. For example, if you are researching alternative treatments for blood cancer:

alternative treatments AND blood cancer

Use quotation marks to find complete phrases, especially proper names and titles. For example:

"muscular dystrophy" or "genetic causes"

Filter for full-text articles. Don't waste your time on articles we don't have. Set your results to show only articles where the full-text is freely available. And pay attention to what you retrieve: not every article published in a peer-reviewed journal is itself peer-reviewed, for example, there may also be book reviews, news reports, etc.

Brainstorm related terms. Consider using a thesaurus or background sources like Wikipedia to come up with synonyms. Experiment with using broader and narrower terms as well. For example, consider "cancer" versus "leukemia" versus "acute myelogenous leukemia."

Use truncation. In many databases, an asterisk will find all words with the same root. For example: juggl* will find ... what?

Check your spelling. If you don't find anything on your topic, sloppy spelling may be to blame!

Citing Sources & Academic Integrity

Why cite sources? In addition to avoiding the severe consequences of plagiarism and increasing our own credibility, we are participating in part of an ongoing conversation. It is important for your readers to be able to find your sources, so they can enter into the dialogue as well.

For this assignment, consider using a free trial subscription to EasyBib.com, available from now until the end of the school year.