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CHEM 100 Chemistry & Society: Searching Peer Review

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The journals Science  and Nature are very, very well respected scientific journals. Both are published weekly. Both include science research articles and also science news articles. Both are peer-reviewed so that even the science news articles can be assumed to be accurate. 

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is an American organization of scientists that is not part of the United States government. Science is also called Science Magazine, although it is definitely a scholarly peer-reviewed journal (so do not confuse the publication title with what type of publication it is). Science Magazine was first published in 1880.

Nature is published by the Nature Publishing Group, which is a British publishing company of science and technology. Nature journal was first published in 1869. Several companion Nature journals were subsequently created to manage the many different disciplines of science.

Searching for Articles from Science & Nature

Here is a suggestion for help finding online articles from the above journals using the library databases.

  1. Go to the library homepage at https://library.indstate.edu/
  2. Click FIND
  3. Click Electronic Resources (Articles)
  4. Click All Database A-Z.
  5. Click Web of Science.
  6. In the first text box, enter Science or Nature or American Scientist or  Audubon or  Discover or  National Geographic or  New Scientist or  Popular Science or  Science News or  Scientific American or  Smithsonian or The Scientist or Cosmos Magazine
  7. In the drop down list to the left, select Publication Titles
  8. Click + Add Row
  9. In the second row, enter global warming
  10. Click Search.

    Web of Science is NOT a full-text database. But the database does try to help you find full-text. 
     
  11. To look for full-text of an article, click on the title of the article to open the record.
  12. To search among the ISU full-text subscriptions (preferred), click Check For Full Text
  13. A new window opens.
    1. IF ISU has an online full-text subscription to this publication, you will see a link to that full-text.
    2. IF ISU does NOT have an online full-text subscription to this publication, you will see a link to Interlibrary Loan.
       
  14. Web of Science offers a few other options to TRY to find full-text. 
    1. To go to the publisher website to find out IF it offers full-text for free, click Full Text at Publisher
    2. To use Google Scholar to try to find full-text online, click Look Up Full Text at Google Scholar. Google Scholar searches publisher websites, too, but it also searches some online repositories of universities and organizations.

Searching in Science Databases

It is a good strategy to use the science databases to search for information about global warming. The librarian's preferred method to search. However, she already knows many of the reputable sources and has experience with evaluating sources for accuracy and relevancy. This is why this Guide is also telling you how to search within only specific reputable sources. (See other Box) 

On the Tabs above is a list of science databases provided via the ISU Library. You may use them to search for information about global warming, climate change, and alternative energy sources.

Many of those databases include articles from both scholarly peer-reviewed journals and popular magazines, but they do not necessarily label whether the publication is scholarly or popular. So you may need to look that up elsewhere! Also, many science databases do NOT include full-text BUT they usually have a link to help you find the full-text.