Evaluate It
Evaluate your articles
You have located several articles. How do you know it's what you want?
You've been asked to find at least one primary research article on your study organism. Primary sources in this case:
- are original scientific reports of new research findings
- usually include the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References
- are peer-reviewed (examined by expert(s) in the field before publication).
You may also choose to use some secondary sources (summaries or interpretations of original research) such as:
- books (from the library catalog) or
- review articles (articles which organize and critically analyze the research of others on a topic).
These secondary sources are often useful and easier-to-read summaries of research in an area. You can also use the references at the end to find useful primary research articles.
OPTIONAL Handy Hints: How can I tell if it's peer-reviewed?
Other things to check:
- In Web of Science, most of your results should be scholarly. However, make sure to exclude things like letters to the editor and news reports in scientific journals by using the Refine by Document Type feature to narrow your results to articles.
- These checklists can be useful for evaluating any resources you find.
If you are browsing popular sources then it is especially important to use evaluation techniques to consider if the source is trustworthy or not. For more information, check out this guide on Fake News.
Save & Cite It
Save articles
Get the article! Many journals allow you to print the full article from their website or download it to your desktop. Some will allow you to e-mail the full article to yourself but it depends on the journal.
Get the citation! Whatever you do, you want to make sure that you get the citation so that you and others can find it again. Nearly all databases allow you to mark and save citations, if not the full text of the article. In Web of Science click the boxes beside the citations you want and print, save or e-mail them either from the results page or by adding them to a marked list and then working with them from the Marked List page.
Cite your articles
Why does proper citation matter?
- Continue the scholarly conversation: If others cannot find the information you based your research on, you have dropped a link in the conversational chain. Your argument has lost its support and foundation.
- Avoid plagiarism and uphold the Cornell Code of Academic Integrity. Unsure whether something needs to be cited? Check the tutorial Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism.
- Giving other people credit for their ideas & not taking credit for them as your own (even inadvertently) is good manners.
There are many different citation styles (think of them as different languages that various disciplines and publications speak); you can find general information on citation styles and citation management programs at the library website. Whatever citation style you use, use it consistently!
In this tutorial you will use the Council of Science Editors (CSE) style. Here are great concise guides on CSE style:
Of course, most of the library reference desks also have the full print handbook.
OPTIONAL Handy Hint: Use citation management tools (like EasyBib or NoodleTools on steroids) to keep all of your citations in one place and insert them into your paper and bibliography automatically in any citation style. This will save you an immense amount of time over the course of your college career. A commonly used citation management tool is called Zotero, which is a free management tool that you can download to your computer. For tips, please check out this libguide: Getting Started with Zotero.