Research guides: BIOB98 Supervised Introductory Research in Biology: Articles

Key Databases

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Abstract and citation information for peer-reviewed scientific research, including journals, books, and conference papers.

Scopus Sidecar Tutorial
Need more help with Scopus searching? This tutorial will guide you with searching in Scopus, using the search form effectively, search strategies like keywords, and helping to find relevant articles.

BIOSIS Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Citation information including abstracts of journals, books, conference papers, and technical reports, in the fields of life sciences and biology.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Citation information and research impact factors for multi-disciplinary journal articles, conference papers, books, and more.
Natural Medicines This link opens in a new window
Indigenous Studies Portal This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles, ebooks, theses, and government publications, with a primary focus on Indigenous peoples of Canada and a secondary focus on North American materials and beyond.
CBCA Reference & Current Events This link opens in a new window

Tree or Plant Databases

Natural Resources Canada Trees Search
The information in this section is based on Trees in Canada published in 1995 by the Canadian Forest Service and Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited.
Trees Inside Out - Montreal Botanical Gardens
TreeSource - Natural Resources Canada
TreeSource is the National database on wood and trees quality in Canada. Developped by the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, it aims to gather the largest possible amount of information on trees quality (dendrometry, physico-mechanical and chemical properties) for economically important species across Canada, for research purposes.
Flora of North America
Flora of North America (FNA) presents for the first time, in one published reference source, information on the names, taxonomic relationships, continent-wide distributions, and morphological characteristics of all plants native and naturalized found in North America north of Mexico.
Virginia Tech Dendrology
North American tree database from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
USDA Plants Database
Plant List of Accepted Nomenclature, Taxonomy, and Symbols
The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories (from website).
Native American Ethnobotany
A Database of Foods, Drugs, Dyes and Fibers of Native American Peoples, Derived from Plants.

Before You Begin Your Research

Need help with planning? Use the Assignment Planner to create a suggested timeline for each step of your assignment
Do some background reading using things like Google, Wikipedia, and books from the library catalogue so you understand your topic
Check out the list of key resources for your subject area

Steps to Successful Searching

Step 1: Brainstorm keywords that represent aspects of your topic.

Step 2: Select appropriate databases for your research topic.

Step 3: Build your search using search terms and Boolean operators.

Step 4: Review your results.

Step 5: Evaluate the quality of your sources.

Step 6: Get the full-text of relevant articles.

Example: Identify Search Strategy with Keywords

What do you want to search about your plant species? You may have to do some background research to get ideas for keywords and what about your species you want to investigate.

Step 1. Describe your Topic

Tree species: Tricolour Beech Tree or Fagus sylvatica

Background research: How to grow and care for Tricolour Beech

Step 2: Identify keywords for your topic.

Note, this is just a starting place for keywords and they may evolve as I find more information and research on this tree species.

Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3	Concept 4
Tricolour Beech Tree	Canada	soil	temperature

Step 3: Find synonyms

Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3	Concept 4
Fagus sylvatica	Ontario	"salty soils"	climate
Beech	North America	"acidic soil"	humidity
fagus	Toronto		"climate change"
	urban		"global warming"

Step 4: Build a search

Concept 1	Concept 2	Concept 3	Concept 4

((Fagus sylvatica OR Fagus) AND (Canada OR Ontario OR North America OR Toronto OR urban) AND (soil OR "salty soils" OR "acidic soil"))

BIOB98 Supervised Introductory Research in Biology

Key Databases

Tree or Plant Databases

Before You Begin Your Research

Steps to Successful Searching

Example: Identify Search Strategy with Keywords

Step 1. Describe your Topic

Step 2: Identify keywords for your topic.

Step 3: Find synonyms

Step 4: Build a search

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