The easiest way to find scientific peer-reviewed articles is to use one of the many databases that the ISU Library subscribes to. These databases contain important citation information that can help you track down the full-text article and they often offer links directly to online journals that the ISU Library subscribes to. Increasingly, these databases provide direct access to the full-text article. The databases below are the most frequently used for identifying veterinary medicine literature.
CAB Abstracts is the most comprehensive English-language database for research literature in agriculture and the applied life sciences, which includes veterinary medicine.
PubMed provides over 32 million citations for biomedical and life sciences literature, including: biomedicine and health, behavioral sciences, bioengineering, biochemistry, genetics, molecular and cell biology.
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research.
Each database is a little different, but most support the following methods for identifying research literature.
Keyword searching is the most popular way to search for information. If your initial search doesn't get you the results you are expecting, try using synonyms or alternative spellings.
Use these terms between keywords to enhance your search. Many databases will allow you to combine keywords using Boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT). Note that many databases require you to capitalize these terms when they are used.
Example search: dogs AND catsMany database search engines, including Google, default to including an "AND" in between keywords. In the example above, a search for dogs cats would likely yield the same results as dogs AND cats.
Example search: dogs OR cats
Example search: pigs NOT guineaNote that the search above may have the unexpected effect of eliminating references to research on pigs in the countries of Guinea and New Guinea.
Use double quotation marks when you want to search for a phrase. The example below shows a search string for research on nutritional supplements for cats. In this example, research that is returned must contain both the exact phrase nutritional supplements and the keyword cats.
cats AND "nutritional supplements"In many databases, using the asterisk (*) as a wild card in your search can be a powerful tool, but you also have to be careful when using it. For example, you may be tempted to use an asterisk with the search term cat* to find articles that include cat or cats. However, it would also return articles with any of the following words as well: category, catalyze, catalog, cattle, etc.
Generally, it is best to use asterisks when truncating longer words. For a better example, consider shelter*. Using this term would return words such as shelter, shelters, sheltered, sheltering. The following search would be a good attempt at finding articles about dogs in animal shelters.
dogs AND shelter*The most powerful searches combine multiple techniques and nest them using parentheses. When nesting terms, it is necessary to confirm the parentheses are properly placed. Forgetting a parenthesis or placing one in the wrong spot can drastically effect the outcome of a search. The search string below combines several techniques above.
(dog OR dogs OR canine) AND shelter* AND "kennel cough"
In some databases you may see the icon above when you do a search for journal articles. This means that the ISU Library should be able to provide access to that article either through an online subscription or a print copy. Clicking on the icon will take you to one of three possibilities:
The library's collections and services are available to all ISU students, faculty, and staff and Parks Library is open to the public.
