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Z 423 Environmental Physiology

Research guide to support searching and organizing of sources for Z 423/IB 523

Searching for Journal Articles on a Topic

To search for a topic you will need to use an article database 

Find a good database.  Each database focuses on a particular subject. Explore various databases on our database page.

  • If you know the name of a good database for your project already, use the alphabet key on the databases page to navigate to your database. 
  • If you don't know the database name, use the subject pull-down menu at the top of the databases page to choose your subject area.  

Break your topic down.  Article databases often work best when you put a single idea in each search box. For example, the research topic "what is the operative temperature of snakes living in a hot environment" could be broken down into three main ideas - operative temperature, snakes, and hot environment. Each of these ideas would go in their own search box. Alternatively, you can place all of these ideas in one search box if you separate each term with an "and."

Use Synonyms.  Researchers often refer to ideas/objects in terms that may be unfamiliar to beginning scientists.  Try different search words to come up with the best results.  For example, hot temperature could also be called climatic extreme.

Find the article.  Not all databases have full-text articles, and sometimes we have the article available electronically, but it is not immediately available from the database with one click. If you do not see a PDF icon for the article within the database, you have 3 options -

  • you can click on the 360 link to full text button which will help you discover whether or not our library has the article,
  • copy the name of the journal title, open another tab or window to the library's homepage, click on the e-journals link and paste the name of the journal in the search box;  once you have opened the journal, find the right volume, issue and page number for your article,
  • if the journal title is not in the ejournals list, paste the title into the OSU Libraries 1Search to see if we have it (either electronically or in print). 

Recommended Databases for Integrative Biology

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)

Where can I get more help?

Contact the OSU Libraries Information Desk