ENVIR ST 717 Seminar (Fall 2025; Spring 2026) : Searching the Research Literature

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, 'Scopus').

2) Use the Browse by Subject/Type page to discover databases that index literature on your research topic.

3) Visit the Top 10 Databases page to quickly access a selection of popularly-used databases.

Agricultural and Environmental Science
Cross-disciplinary database of full-text content along with indexing of global literature across these fields and related disciplines.
CAB Abstracts
Comprehensive database of the applied life sciences including animal and crop production, environmental impacts, nutrition, soil science, and veterinary science.
GeoRef (Geology)
Searchable access to the earth sciences literature of the world including conference papers and abstracts, guidebooks, maps, reports, theses, and some monographs.
Google Scholar
Multi-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).
GreenFILE
Covers aspects of human impact on the environment, including such topics as global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
Scopus
Large, multidisciplinary database that covers engineering, science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and the arts and humanities. Includes tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
Water Resources Abstracts
Access to technical and scientific literature on water-related topics covering the characteristics, conservation, control, pollution, treatment, use and management of water resources. While this database can be searched independently, it is incorporated into the Agricultural and Environmental Science Database.
Web of Science
Collection 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.
Wildlife and Ecology Studies
Searchable access to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians from journals, monographs, conference proceedings and symposia, government reports, grey literature, books, theses, dissertations, field studies, and surveys from U.S. state agencies.

Get the Full Text

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 have a known article or citation for which you need to retrieve the full-text, run an Articles search from the library site or use this Citation Search.

Searching Tips for Online Databases

Use AND to combine search terms; retrieve records with those terms, in any order: friends AND communication
Use OR to combine similar search terms or synonyms: friends OR peers
Use quotation marks ( " ") to search a required phrase: "interpersonal communication"
Use an asterisk ( * ) to retrieve singular and plural forms or suffixes for search terns: friend* = friend, friends, friendly or friendship
Review "subject headings" or "descriptors" to identify additional and useful search terms.
Apply limits or filters to your results (by date, document type, or other).