InfoGuides: Pre-Health Sciences And Micro/Cell Biology: Digging Deeper

Research Process

The research process can look different for everyone, and may look different from project to project, but most will have a few common features:

Begin with a question you want answered. What are you most interested in learning?
Decide what type of information you need: do you need newspapers, books, or scholarly articles?
Gather and evaluate information: are your sources current, reliable, applicable, and unbiased?
Is your question answered? Do you need more (or different) information? Do you need to change your question?
Repeat 1-4 until you're ready to use the information: make a decision, write a paper, present, etc.

Don't forget to ask a librarian for help!

Databases

Article First
Provides table of contents and indexing to general academic articles from over 12,500 journals in English and other languages. Covers business, science, humanities, social sciences, medicine, technology, and popular culture.

Format: Citations; some full-text via link resolver, Coverage: 1990 - present, Truncation and Wildcard: * and # or ?, Search Tips: May browse 'Index'. Omit punctuation (apostrophes, commas, etc.), but may use ampersands (&) and hyphens. Enter a space instead of a slash. Search names as Lastname Firstname Middlename without commas. May link to 'Browse Journal Titles'. '?Help' link is on each screen.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global
Provides full text for over 1.7 million dissertations and masters theses from U.S. and international academic institutions and abstracting and indexing for 3.8 million.

Format: Frequently full-text, Coverage: Citations since 1637. Some full-text from 1743. Truncation and Wildcard: ? and *, Search Tips: May combine searches in a single research session.
Proceedings First
Lists worldwide conferences and symposiums, with their papers and proceedings. Covers wide variety of disciplines.

Format: Citations, Coverage: 1993-present. Updates biweekly., Truncation and Wildcard: * or + for plurals only and # for single character, ? 0-9 characters, Search Tips: Can search by keyword, conference details, journal, material type, date or source editor. Titles of papers within a conference are NOT included in the keyword indexing.
WorldCat (FirstSearch)
Has over 246 million bibliographic records of books, websites and Internet resources, computer programs, films and slides, journals, magazines, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, sound recordings, and videotapes.

Format: Citations, Coverage: Before 1000 B.C.E. to present, Truncation and Wildcard: * and # or ?, Search Tips: After searching, use 'Related Subjects' for additional subject search terms. Omit punctuation (apostrophes, commas, etc.), but may use ampersands and hyphens. Enter a space instead of a slash. Search names as Lastname Firstname Middlename without commas. '?Help' link is on each screen.
WorldCat Dissertations
Indexes more than 5 million dissertations cataloged in libraries around the world. Does contain items that are not in Digital Dissertations. Check Digital Dissertations for full-text BEFORE placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

Format: Citations, Coverage: Mid 1800s to present, Truncation and Wildcard: * and # or ?, Search Tips: After searching, use 'Descriptor' for additional subject search terms. Omit punctuation (apostrophes, commas, etc.), but may use ampersands and hyphens. Enter a space instead of a slash. Search names as Lastname Firstname Middlename without commas. '?Help' link is on each screen.
Web of Science
Simultaneously search the most important journals in the social sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, the humanities, and visual and performing arts. Includes 'high impact' scholarly sources. Search by author, topic, affiliation, etc., or follow links to cited sources. Create an individualized sign-in to save results, set up search alerts, and gain access to citation management with the My EndNote Web service. Includes Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index (SCI).

Format: Citations; some full-text via link resolver, Coverage: 1970-present, Truncation and Wildcard: * and * for (any), ? for (1), $ for (0 or 1), Search Tips: Default search is for terms in the order they are entered, use quotation marks for a phrase. Search options include author, title, keyword, and subject. Author first name is initials only. Supports logical connectors AND, OR, NOT, and SAME. Can limit to one or two of the included indexes.

Databases & Scholarly Articles

Library Databases may contain:

scholarly articles
newspapers or magazines
images or historical documents
full-text books

Citation Tracking in Web of Science

Interlibrary Loan

Found or need information (e.g. articles, books, etc.) that we don't have access to? You can get it via Interlibrary Loan Details (ILL).

Request a book or article.
Most articles are emailed within 1-2 weeks. Books may take longer.

WTAMU students, faculty, staff, and Friends of Cornette Library (Supporting level and above) can use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to borrow research materials from the collections of other libraries.

ILL Office hours are Monday-Friday 8AM to 5PM. Contact the Interlibrary Loan department at (806) 651-2406.

Delivery could take as little as a couple of days or as much as three weeks. See here for more information about Interlibrary Loan. Click here for our ILL FAQs. For our Interlibrary Loan policies, click our Library policies section, then select Interlibrary Loan.

Request an Item