- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Research Guides
- LSC 560: Life Sciences Communication. Scientific Writing (Fall 2023)
- Find Scholarly Research Articles
LSC 560: Life Sciences Communication. Scientific Writing (Fall 2023) : Find Scholarly Research Articles
Selecting and Searching Databases by Subject or Type
You can access databases from the library home page (library.wisc.edu). Use the dropdown menu at the Catalog button to navigate to Databases.
There are several ways to browse and to select databases:
1) Search by the title of the database (for example, GreenFILE).
2) Use the Browse by Subject or by Type pages to select databases that cover the research literature on your topic of interest.
3) Visit the Top 10 Databases page to quickly access a selection of popularly-used databases.
Consider the databases listed, below, for conducting your search of the research literature.
- Agriculture and Environmental ScienceCross-disciplinary database of full-text content along with indexing of global literature across these fields and related disciplines.
- CAB AbstractsComprehensive database of the applied life sciences including animal and crop production, environmental impacts, nutrition, and veterinary science.
- Google ScholarMulti-disciplinary search engine to scholarly articles.
Note: Accessing Google Scholar through our libraries will help you to bypass paywalls (i.e retrieve more full-text through our subscriptions). - GreenFILEAccess to scholarly, government, and general-interest sources addressing environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments.Topics covered include climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
- ScopusLarge, multidisciplinary database that covers science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Includes tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
- Web of ScienceCollection of databases that index the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, as published in journals, conference proceedings, symposia, and more. Includes citation network data.
Browse Journals in Browzine
BrowZine is available for UW-Madison students, faculty and staff. BrowZine lets you browse, read, save, and monitor scholarly journals in your subject areas on your mobile device or desktop/laptop.
Retrieve the Full Article
Follow (Find It button) or the "Find It at UW Madison" link in most databases to:
- get online full text (when available)
- see if the journal is available in print (Library Catalog)
- request a copy of the article if full text is not available online ("Request a Copy" link)
If you already have a citation, use this Citation Search to search for your article.
Understanding the Peer Review Process
Scholarly articles undergo a peer review process before they are published. This means that experts in the field are invited by the journal editors to review the quality of the article, and make suggestions for improvements before publication.
This video explains the peer review process:
- Peer Review in Three MinutesHow do articles get peer reviewed? What role does peer review play in scholarly research and publication?Video created by NCSU Libraries.