Finding Articles Reporting Scientific Findings

For science classes, you will often be required to find scientific articles. Usually, your professors will require that you find articles that are reporting original research. You will want the original scientific report, including the information you would need if you were going to replicate the experiment or study. But sometimes these articles can be difficult to find and identify. Let's begin by looking at how to find them. Your best databases for finding scientific articles are Science Resource Center and Academic Search Premier.

Science Resource Center
From the "Find an Article" page, click on Science Resource Center. When prompted, click on the "Proceed' button.

Notice that there's a list of subjects on the page. You can click on one of them to find a list of articles related to that topic.

If you have a more specific idea of what you are looking for, use the search box at the top of the page. When you search, make sure to do a "Keyword Search," not a "Subject Search."

The database will return with articles organized into folders:

"Items 1-2 of 2 found" is referring to just reference articles. To find articles from scientific journals, click on the "Academic Journals" tab. Not every article is going to be reporting original scientific research. You'll still have to pick through them.

Your best case scenario is any article that has the words "Statistical Data Included" to the right of the title. Those articles will almost certainly be presenting scientific research. Also look for the icon of a page with writing on it. That means that the entire article is available online to read and print out.

Your second best case scenario is any article that has the word "Article" to the right of the title. Those articles might be presenting scientific research. Again, look for the icon of a page with writing on it to find full text articles.

• At least 5 pages long, and often are 15 pages or longer.
• Very difficult to read and understand, using highly specialized language.
• Have lengthy bibliographies at the end.

If an article is only 2 pages long, has no references (bibliography), and you understand it without concentrating and perhaps looking up some of the words, then it is not presenting scientific research. It's just talking about it.

If your article looks good so far, then take a closer look. Most scientific research is divided into distinct, easily recognizable sub-sections. Here are some of the subheadings to look for:

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions
• References

If the article has three or more of these subheadings, then it almost certainly is an article presenting original scientific research.

Academic Search Premier
You may be able to find scientific articles using other databases, especially Academic Search Premier. When searching using Academic Search Premier (or any other EBSCOhost database), be sure to check the "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" box:

Once you get some results, use the same criteria outlined above to identify the articles that present original scientific research.

If you are unable to find a scientific article that addresses your area of interest, be sure to ask a librarian for assistance.