Biology Symposium (Vautour)

Note: This page has been customized for Mr. Vautour's A block class! Other biology students should see the original Biology Symposium Pathfinder.

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 what you need. If you don't have time for an inter-library loan request, filter for full-text results with images. If you're beyond the stage of background research, filter for peer-reviewed content.

Experiment with advanced search strategies. What would happen if you added the phrase "literature review" to the document title field? Or maybe "systematic review" or "meta-analysis"?

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 consequences of plagiarism and increasing your credibility, you are participating an ongoing scholarly conversation. It is important for your readers to be able to find your sources, so they can enter into the dialogue as well.

Your school subscription to EasyBib can help you format and track citations.

Research Questions

The collective wisdom of FIVE biology classes combined came up with the following characteristics of a good research question for bio symposium:

• Has more than one possible answer

• Focused, specific, concrete

• Can be answered through evidence and data

• Interesting to you (you'll spend a long time with it!)

• Interesting and/or important to others

• Challenging, but not so hard that you can't succeed/understand

• Related to biology (but your teachers are great at showing how EVERYTHING comes back to biology!)

• Takes form of a question (not just a topic area)

• Makes you think!

Research Resources

Use the resources below to find great information about your topic!

Research Databases

• Science in Context

• Science Online

• General OneFile

• Opposing Viewpoints in Context

  • Gale Power Search (search across all Gale databases at once)

Popular and Trade Periodicals

• • Advanced Science, Serving Society (AAAS)

• Boston Globe Health | Science

  • Boston Globe (access through library database)

• National Geographic

• National Public Radio's Science Friday

  • New York Times Science News and Well Blog

    • New York Times (access through library database)

• Science News for Students (Society for Science & the Public)

• Scientific American and Scientific American Mind [complete access with password!]

• Scitable by Nature Education

*Thanks to your input, we have upgraded our trial to a subscription! You now have complete access to the archives. The magic word (i.e., password) for home access is the same as the other database passwords.

Print Sources

• AHS Media Center Catalog

• Robbins Library Catalog

  • Don't forget, your textbook is another great source!

Additional resources on citation:

• Arlington High School Guide to Student Research Projects

  • Created by Arlington High School teachers for Arlington High School students, this guide explains the research process and what will be expected of you.

• Research and Documentation Online

  • Detailed explanation of in-text citations and works cited entries in perfect MLA format for a wide variety of sources.

Anatomy of a Database Citation

Most of your sources will come from article databases. Say it with me now: "Databases are not websites!" Here is a sample database article citation in MLA format:

Sanders, Rogier W. "HIV Takes Double Hit Before Entry." BMC Biology 10 (2013): 99. Academic OneFile. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.

And these are the parts:

Author last name, first name. "Title of article." Journal title volume and issue (date of publication): page numbers. Database name. Medium. Date of access.

This research site from Bedford/St. Martin's has other examples.

Tip: Most of our databases provide MLA formatted citations at the bottom of each article. They contain all the necessary information, though you may need to edit them for the citation style your teacher requires.