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BOT 323 - Flowering Plants of the World

Library guide to support searching and organizing of sources for BOT 323

Start Broadly - 1Search

Find books, online scholarly articles or newspaper articles that OSU subscribes to.  If you need to find specific items, such as books by a particular author, use the advanced search option for more precise searching. Access 1Search from the library's home page.

1Search search bar showing two links: Databases A through Z and eJournals A through Z

 

Botany Specific Databases

Google Scholar

Google Scholar

You do allow embedded content.

A simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.

Find out how to set your preferences in Google Scholar, so you can use OSU Libraries subscriptions to get free access to content that is not free on the web:

How to use Google Scholar (without Paying for the Articles)

Finding the full text of an article

 Look for the 360 link to full text button to open the full article.

Options for getting to the PDF will open in a new window. Sometimes the link will take you to the journal, not the individual article. Use the citation information for the article to get to the right year, volume and issue of the journal.

If the library doesn't have it, request the article for free from Interlibrary Loan: https://library.oregonstate.edu/illiad On average, articles arrive digitally in 13 hours.

Searching Tricks

Here are some tricks of the trade to make your searches more effective (these work in most databases):

  • Use quotes to search for an exact phrase or name
  • Use an asterisk with word roots to expand beyond an exact word

 

Searching in Google? Try these tricks:

  • Search for a specific file type - filetype:pdf
  • Search within a particular website - site:nytimes.com
  • Look for related words with a ~

screenshot of google search bar

From: Hack College, Get More Out of Google