ENVS 319 Research and Writing: Home

This page lists resources suitable for doing research for the ENVS 319 class.

General Databases

Science Databases

Government Databases

Transportation Databases

Some Advice on Literature Reviews

Types of articles and journals

You will often be asked to search for academic, scholarly, refereed or peer-reviewed articles. How are they different from other articles?

Academic, Scholarly, Refereed, or Peer-reviewed Articles

  • Academic articles appear in academic journals (as opposed to general interest or trade magazines)
  • Articles in academic journals are selected (refereed) by experts in the field (peer reviewers).
  • Academic articles are created by academics for academics.
  • The research and information in these articles is considered to be trustworthy and well-researched.
  • Academic journals often have the word "journal" in the title, like Journal of Environmental Health.
  • Academic articles are long.
  • Academic articles have citations (footnotes or endnotes).
  • Academic articles are often primary literature, meaning the first reports of research.
  • Academic journals rarely feature color pictures; many will feature charts and graphs.
  • Authors often have an affiliation with a university or research institute.

 Trade Magazines

  • Trade magazines provide news for professionals in a field, so they assume the reader is knowledgable.  (Columbia Journalism Review is a trade magazine for journalists, The Biologist is a trade magazine for biologists.)
  • Articles are often shorter and don't have footnotes.

General-interest Magazines

  • General-interest magazines include titles like Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and Rolling Stone.
  • Articles are often shorter and written for a general audience.
  • Don't dismiss an article in a general-interest magazine, but be aware of who it is written for and where it is coming from.

Many databases will allow you to limit to only articles in  peer-reviewed journals.  Ulrich's Web is a directory of journals (not a database of articles) that will always tell you whether a periodical is refereed.

Librarian

Rob Lopresti's picture
Rob Lopresti
Contact:
360-650-3342

Wilson Library 275
Website / Blog Page

Western Digital Collections

Western Libraries has many digital collections.  The Huxley Collection includes digital copies of recent theses, field project reports, etc.
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