ENG103: Writing in and about the Sciences

Library databases chosen for your annotated bibliography.


   Start Your Research Here: 
 

As You Do Your Research Assignments...

SUNY Adirondack librarians (librarian@sunyacc.edu) are available to help you with your research. You may find these links helpful:

1) Picking Your Research Topic

Use the Reference Databases on this page to browse for ideas to help you narrow your topic.

Evaluating Information: Handout and Videos

Scientific Reliability

2a) Books and Ebooks

  • The "Start Your Research Here" box does a broad, shallow search across 100 of the library's 120 databases.
    • Sign in with your college username/password to save results, searches and request to borrow books.
    • Limit your search to type of material, such as Books or Ebooks.
    • Chapters from ebooks can be downloaded from on or off-campus. 
  • Well-researched, credible books will not yet exist about very new topics (such as COVID).
    • However, you can find books about similar historical events using a broader idea, such as pandemics.

2b) Reference Databases

These encyclopedia-type databases offer chapters and articles with reliable overviews, background, and history of your topic.

  • Some of these sources may be found with the search box above, but searching the databases below directly finds much more.
  • Hover over links below for descriptions. 

Freedom of Information Act Files

3) Articles

  1. Use the "Start Your Research Here" box and limit to Articles
  2. To find articles, do a more specific Advanced Search: COVID-19 AND origin* 
    • ​The wildcard or truncation symbol, the asterisk (*), finds all word endings: origin, origins, originate, originates, etc.
    • Limit by date and to "Peer Reviewed Journals" (left column).
  3. You can also do a more in-depth search using one article databases below, such as ProQuest Central. 

4) Media: Films on Demand, More

Some videos can be found with the search box above, but find more results by searching these documentary video databases directly.  

Podcasts and assorted websites: 

Options for Searching the Web

Alternate search engines offer more privacy for searching the free web. 

This page describes how to do a Google Advanced Search:

Meet Your Science Librarian

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