Scientific Literature Exercise



Scientific Literature Exercise

BIO 353 2020

NOTE: You must complete this assignment and return it to class by Friday, February 14, in class as a hard copy. Late turn-ins will be penalized.

Introduction

The scientific literature is very complex and spread over a large number of journals, books, and even reports that are often difficult to find. It is the purpose of this exercise to get you used to some of the methods of finding appropriate papers that might help you in learning about a subject or preparing you to design your own research.

There are a few basic ways that scientific literature can be found, once a particular subject is identified:

1) Ask others about the “hot” papers and authors. If you choose the right people you will have a far more efficient entry into the literature than a random search.

2) Once you have a few papers to examine, read them and work from the bibliographies cited at the end of the papers. If the papers come from the past couple of years or so you will have a sampling of "what matters" in a given field.

3) Take a look at journals that typically have papers in the field you are researching. See the appendix for a list of journals for this exercise.

4) Scan through research databases for papers in your subject area, and even look for particular authors on computer databases.

5) Once you have the major papers in your field, you can use a data base (e.g. scholar.) to search for recent papers by restricting the search to “since 2014” or some time like that.

Stony Brook's Computer Reference Base

Stony Brook has a fairly extensive selection of computer databases. The simplest one to access is the Web of Science, which can be reached through the library Research Databases link. (I am assuming that you all know how to get to a web page and to reach this address. If you don't please see me immediately and I will show you). To start the process, first go to stonybrook.edu and choose the Libraries link. Then click the Databases link in the upper banner. You then can go to the letter “W” and then click the Web of Science link. You may be able eventually get papers by choosing the Ejournals option on the main Library web page.

There is an important additional option: scholar. This is accessed directly on a web browser. You write a few key words and hit return. You get a large list, really a hodgepodge, of references, papers, references to references, etc. Sometimes you get a pdf for direct downloading. The real advantage of this database is the simple way you can connect to access for interlibrary loan. If you have a login for interlibrary loan (ILL) you can connect automatically and apply for etransmission of the paper.

You will see a journal, volume and page reference, usually.

Getting Papers On Line

Our Stony Brook library has a large range of journals on line, which may allow you to download a pdf of a published paper for direct reading. Once you get a reference (author, year, title, journal, volume, and page numbers) you can go to the E-Journals option mentioned above, on the home page of the Stony Brook Library website. Click the eJournals choice, the Title choice, and then type the Journal Title under title and find the journal and see if we have it.

Example:

Log on to stonybrook.edu

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Click the Libraries link on the upper banner.

Click “Title” and type in the name of the journal (in this case Ecological Applications):

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Now click “Journals”

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Now click ejournals A-Z

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You will now be able to type in a journal name, e.g., Ecological Applications

You will find that some papers are in a journal we have and you can access it directly. In other cases, we will have the journal, but the volume for the particular paper will not be available, or we won’t have the journal at all. An option is to go to the InterLibrary Loan desk in the Library, or log on to ILL/Document Delivery (requires netid and password) - .

You will have to fill out the form to get the paper and it may take a couple of days to weeks, depending on the reference.

The Exercise

1) Choose a subject and find three papers on that subject. You can use any of the methods I mentioned above. Keep in mind that the Marine Biology Web Page has reference lists for a number of subjects, as does the text. The MBWEB site is: Both are acceptable to use.

2) Write the references out in full. Here is an example:

Gallagher, J., and P. Sheen. 1920. How we taught Groucho Marx all he knows today. Journal of Entertainment, v. 2, pp. 23-24. IMPORTANT: DON’T GIVE ON LINE REFERENCE. GIVE JOURNAL NAME, VOLUME AND PAGES AS INDICATED HERE. DO GIVE ONLINE REFERENCE IF JOURNAL IS ON LINE ONLY (e.g., papers in journals PLoS One, BMC Evolutionary Biology).

3) As best as you can, describe how and why the three papers can be grouped under the same subject, i.e., are related to each other in general objectives and approach. Keep your discussion to 100-250 words. You MUST look at these papers in the Science library (north end of the Galleria of Frank Melville Library; journals are upstairs) or read them as pdf files on line. In order to find the journals in paper form, you will have to find their Library of Congress Code Numbers with the aid of the computers there.

NOTE: Many journals now are online and you may be able to download articles this way as Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. To see if we have the journal you want you have to go to the Libraries web page and select the Electronic Journals link and use instructions as above. Usually the journals have numbers only for recent years, with the exception of some, such as Limnology and Oceanography, Science, Ecology, etc.

4) Choose another subject and use a computer database only to find 5 references on that subject. Give the subject area you chose and list the 5 references in the same way as for the first part of this assignment and try to have them cover the same subject as best you can. You do not have to look at the papers directly. Write down the name of the database(s) that you used.

NOTE! Web pages and books are not appropriate as references.

Problems? You can contact me at Jeffrey.levinton@stonybrook.edu, or you can the course TA, Jose Moscoso Nunez, jose.moscosonunez@stonybrook.edu

Some Journals to Examine (others are also acceptable):

American Zoologist

Biological Bulletin

Deep-Sea Research

Ecology

Ecological Applications

Ecology Letters

Evolution

Functional Ecology

Journal of Animal Ecology

Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology

Journal of Marine Research

Journal of Shellfish Research

Limnology and Oceanography

Marine Biology

Marine Ecology - Progress Series

Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Nature

Science

Trends in Ecology and Evolution

REMEMBER DUE DATE IS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, HARD COPY DUE IN CLASS

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