Chemistry

Sample Topics:

1. Acid Rain
2. Chemical Warfare
3. Decomposition
4. Digestion
5. Fireworks
6. Immunization
7. Magnetic Resonance
8. Purification
9. Radioactive Decay
10. Toxicology

Search Strategies:

• Use Boolean Operators to connect search terms or keywords: AND, OR, NOT
• Use quotation marks for exact phrases
• Use database limiters to refine searches: full-text, peer-reviewed journals, published date, publication type, etc.

Let's say you need to complete a research paper requiring two scholarly research articles on any chemistry-related topic. Where do you start? Let's explore a topic from the list on the left: Radioactive Decay. 

A good place to begin your research is to gather background information in Credo Reference (see link below). A topic search for radioactive decay in Credo Reference reveals a summary article (note: not a scholarly research article). From this article we can learn more about radioactive decay, narrow down the topic, and gather keywords for future article searches. For instance, the summary article below discusses the three most common forms of radioactive decay (alpha, beta, and gamma decay). 

Now let's gather resources for the paper. An excellent source for chemistry-related scholarly research articles is the Science Database in NCLIVE (see link below). From the background research, we can create a keyword search: "Alpha Decay." Please note the search strategies for the Science Database on the left. Also, be sure to limit your searches to full text and peer-reviewed. 

Once you click search, you have a list of search results. From here you can further limit your searches on the left-hand side of the search page. A good way to to list the most current articles is to limit your search results by publication date.

Now it's your turn to go through the search results to find the best articles for your research paper. Be sure to collect the citations for the articles in the tools section in NCLIVE.