Biology Research Guide

Omphalotus nidiformis is bioluminescent and poisonous.(c) Kirsten Bradley, 2015.

Activity Instructions:

1. You'll be separated into 4 groups, and each group will be assigned one of the databases below.
2. You and your group will perform two simple searches in your database (you can copy/paste each search):
   1. how does the ghost fungus create its bioluminescence?
   2. "Omphalotus nidiformis" AND biolum*
3. For each search, first note how many results you got (if any). Next, skim article titles and abstracts. Does it look like these results might be relevant for what you're expected to find in this class? Do you see what looks like primary research among your results? 
4. Take a look around the database. What search features do you notice that could be helpful? How much information can you get about individual articles? Can you get full text? Click around!
5. Finally, as a group, pick one of your searches and try out a modification of your own. You could change or add (or remove) a keyword; you could try using Boolean operators, anything you think might help you get more, less, or different results.
6. As a group, you'll share with your classmates:
   1. the basic results of your two searches, as well as
   2. one thing you liked or thought was interesting, and
   3. one thing you didn't like or had a question about.
   4. Also tell us about your modification in step 5!
7. Please include your thoughts on why these two search strings got different results in your database. I am also interested, if there's time, in what additional questions we might want to ask to make our hypothetical future searches on this topic more precise.

Imace (c) CC BY Nicole Gustavsen, 

You can use Boolean logic as part of your search strategy to easily scope your searching to bring back more relevant results. The AND operator is used to narrow results, while the OR operator is used to expand them. You can also use the NOT operator to exclude particular search terms from a pool of results. Other tools include quote search (search for a phrase "in quotes" to find that exact phrase), and wildcard (search for all possible endings of a word at once using the asterisk: wild* brings back wilds, wildcard, wilderness, wildland, etc).

Image from "How to Read a Book" by Paul N. Edwards.

This illustration demonstrates the tendency of scholarly information to be organized so that more general or broad information is found at the beginning and the end (say, the introduction and conclusion sections) while more specific information (such as methodologies) is found in the middle. Knowing this structure can help us read strategically.