Research Guides: Biology: Find Articles

Tip: Peer Reviewed Articles

Peer reviewed articles are:

written by experts in the field
use terms and language that are discipline-specific
assessed for validity and scholarly rigor by other experts in the field before publication (peer review)
published by professional organizations or societies, universities, research centers, or scholarly presses

Strategies for finding peer reviewed articles:

Use a library database and limit your search to only peer reviewed articles, you may also see phrases like Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals.
Learn if a journal is peer-reviewed:
- Some databases allow you to click on the journal title to get more information about it.
- Or check the journal's website to see whether or not the journal uses a peer-review process in its publishing practices.

Library Databases

Academic Search Complete
Academic and peer-reviewed articles from 11,000+ journals in most subject areas. Full text for many (but not all) articles.
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
Reviews of the year's most significant primary research in ecology, evolution, and systematics. Full-text access from 1996-present.
Annual Review of Environment and Resources
A peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes review articles about environmental science and environmental engineering. Full text coverage from 1996 - present.
BioOne
Explore more than 350 journals (full text) and eBooks in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
Environment Complete
Extensive coverage in the areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, and affiliated areas of study. Offering full text and indexing for journals, books and monographs.
JSTOR
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Our subscription is generally limited to full text coverage from the beginning of each publication to about 3-5 years ago.
Nature
Nature is a weekly international journal publishing the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions.
Science
Science, founded by Thomas A. Edison in 1880 and published by AAAS, today ranks as the world's largest circulation general science journal. Published 51 times a year, Science is renowned for its highly cited, peer-reviewed research papers, its special strength in life science disciplines, and its award-winning coverage of breaking science news. Full-text from 1997-present.
Science Reference Source
This database offers full text for hundreds of science magazines, journals, reference books and high-quality videos, plus science experiments, curriculum-aligned lesson plans and a vast image collection. Titles include Discover, Scientific American, Science News and more.

Finding Journals

Are you wondering if we have a particular journal? Do you have a citation like the following and want to know if the article is available in one of our databases?

Petersen, C. W. "Sexual conflict and cooperation in hermaphroditic fishes." INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY. Vol. 44. No. 6. 1313 DOLLEY MADISON BLVD, NO 402, MCLEAN, VA 22101 USA: SOC INTEGRATIVE COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, 2004.

The name of the journal in the citation above is Integrative and Comparative Biology. To find out if we have access to this journal, do a title search for Integrative and Comparative Biology in our EBSCO FIND A JOURNAL.

This shows that the full text of articles from Integrative and Comparative Biology are available in our database BioOne from 2002 to 2005 and JSTOR Life Sciences Archive Collection 2002-present (I year delay). Since our citation above shows that the article we want is from 2004, we should be able to find it in this database.

Journals

American Biology Teacher
The American Biology Teacher is an award-winning, peer-refereed professional journal for K-16 biology teachers. Topics covered in the journal include modern biology content, teaching strategies for the classroom and laboratory, field activities, applications, professional development, social and ethical implications of biology and ways to incorporate such concerns into instructional programs, as well as reviews of books and classroom technology products.
American Forests
Explore articles and photographs that bring to life the reforestation movement.
Animal Cells and Systems
Animal Cells and Systems publishes open access research into animal science and biology, evolution, ecology, biochemistry, genetics and genomics.
Annals of Applied Biology
Annals of Applied Biology is a research journal that publishes novel and rigorous research on applied biology in the broad context of sustainability in biosciences. Our goal is to share groundbreaking science to a wide international audience, advancing our understanding of how an organism grows and/or interacts with the natural environment, biotic or abiotic factors and responds to man-made growth modifiers.
BioScience
An official journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Publishes overviews of current research in biology, essays, and discussion on.
Cellular Microbiology
Cellular Microbiology is an open access journal publishing outstanding contributions to the understanding of interactions between microbes, prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and their host in the context of pathogenic or mutualistic relationships, including co-infections and microbiota.