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This page provides a summary of the Library resources you will find useful for your research assignments for Genetics.
In the boxes below, you'll find an overview of how to identify a primary research article in the life sciences, as well as 4 different strategies to find them:
1. Use a library database
2. Use Summon
3. Search a journal
4. Try PubMed or Google Scholar
At the bottom of the page you'll find some resources for citing your sources in APA as well as some information about using Zotero to save and cite your sources.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions! I am also available to meet with you either online or in person. Use the Book an Appointment button below my profile box on this link or simply reach out via the email below.
~ Celia Brinkerhoff, Biology Librarian
In the life sciences, primary sources are reports of original research, written by the people who conducted the research themselves, and are published in peer-reviewed, scientific journals. They always reference other research in the field, contained in a reference list at the end of the article, and include an experimental methods section as well as results displayed in graphs and tables.
Most scientific journals will include these primary sources, often in sections called "research" or "articles." Journals also contain additional types of content such as editorials, commentaries, and review articles.
For this assignment, you will have to scan the results of your searches to ensure that you've found a primary article reporting on original research, and not a "review article."
Features of a primary source article include:
If your article DOES NOT have these sections, it's likely not a primary source. Look for some thing else!
The following is a screenshot of a REVIEW article published in the journal Planta. It highlights a few key features that will help you distinguish between this kind of overview article and one reporting on primary research. Here is a link to the article if you want to view it in full.
See the screenshot on the next tab over to compare what a primary research article will look like.
1. Look on the article record (the journal landing page for the article, not the PDF) for a description or label that indicates what kind of article it may be. Remember that within a single scholarly journal there will be various types of content: reviews, opinions, book reviews, and syntheses. Not every article will be reporting on original research done by the authors themselves. Reviews might also be called systematic or scoping reviews, syntheses and so on.
2. Read the paper's abstract thoroughly. In the above example, there are clues in a few sentences that the authors are not reporting on an experiment they have done themselves, but rather are intending to provide an overview of a specialized topic. When reading an abstract, try to visualize what experimental methods are being used.
3. Still on the article page (not the PDF), you might see an outline or table of contents of the article. Check to see if the sections listed match what you know to generally be the format of a primary research article. You'll want to note whether materials and methods, results, discussion and reference sections are clearly stated. Is there a stated hypothesis or research question being asked?
Here is screenshot of a PRIMARY RESEARCH article from the journal Clinical Nutrition.
The article was found by searching PubMed, then accessing the full text article on the publishers' site, Science Direct.
1. The journal indicates this is an "original article" meaning that it is reporting on original, or primary, research done by the authors themselves. Some journals may use the terms "research article", "research report", and so on.
2. Next, skim the abstract. In some journals, the abstract may be called a summary, and be structured in sections. Look for a statement regarding the research question or purpose of the investigation. This summary includes both a recognition of a gap in research, as well as a description of experimental methods.
3. The article sections are also linked on the left hand side, making it easy to jump right to the materials and methods section in order to verify that an experiment is being described.
Use one of the "Best Bets" databases on the Articles tab of the Biology subject guide to search across many journals all at once. Library databases will provide full text access to most articles, unlike PubMed and Google Scholar.
Database Tips:
Once you have run a search and begin to look at results, from the individual article record you will see links to "related" or "recommended" articles.
Like the Summon example below, most databases offer a "cited by" or "citing" list of articles that reference the one you are looking at.
Do your research early! If you find the citation for an article the Library doesn't have, you may request it through Interlibrary Loan. Just give yourself enough time (approx.1 week), and we'll get the article for you, for free!
Use the Library's Summon search box on the homepage.
Here is an example search:
For a broad topic search related to viruses in hops, an important agricultural crop, consider starting with these keywords: Humulus lupulus and virus and genomics
Limit to: scholarly and peer review articles, published in the last 3 years, and use the topic filter for articles primarily about genomes or viruses
Scan: abstracts to find an article that is reporting on original research
Verify: access the full text (either pdf or html version) and look for structures of scientific article
Locate: related articles using the reference list or the "cited by" feature, which will list other articles that cite this one
The screenshot below demonstrates this search strategy.
Use the Journal by Title search on the library homepage if you know a key journal for your topic, or you are tracking citations from a reference list of another article. Using this search will link you to the database which contains the journal.
Key journals available through library databases are:
A few important Open Access journals, freely available:
If the above strategies are not resulting in the kind of article you need, try PubMed or Google Scholar.
When using PubMed, be sure you can access the full text of the article. If it is not available within PubMed itself, look for a link to full text on the publisher's site. If KPU library subscribes to that journal, you should be able to access it there.
Google Scholar will search across most academic publishing sites and other institutional repositories and will include conference proceedings, dissertations, and more. Some of the content is available full text, and some will be citation-only.
However, be cautious that some of the content on Google Scholar is not peer-reviewed. In some cases, you may see results from sites such as ResearchGate and biorXiv, where authors post versions of their own content, which may or may not have been through a review process. Articles from these sites will NOT be accepted for your assignment. Instead, try to find the published version in a library database or other peer-reviewed publisher's site.
If you are using Google Scholar, you will want to configure your settings to include links to articles available from Kwantlen Polytechnic Library subscription journals to avoid hitting publishers' paywalls. See the screenshot below.
The Library's APA citation style guide will give you examples of how to make in-text citations and reference lists for your paper.
For details about how to number, title, and caption any figures you use, please see the Tables, Figures and Images page on the guide.
A note about references in presentations: Although APA does not specify how to do this, be sure to include a note at the bottom of your slides when referencing other works. It is also good practice to include a final slide listing all sources you have used.
See the Presentations page on the library's guide.
Zotero is a free browser tool that keeps track of your articles and webpages, and creates citations in several formats. Sign up for a free account, and your personal library will be accessible from any computer with an internet connection.
For help learning how to use Zotero, please visit Zotero.org for downloading and support.