Environmental Science 150: Home

Don't forget Krista's search tips!

1. Search words not sentences. 
• See a preposition (of, from, to, about, etc.) or an article (the, an, a)? Take it out!
2. Try variations on your keywords.
3. Put phrases in quotation marks
4. Stuck for 10 minutes or more?  Chat for help.

Examples:

1. biodiversity assessment pollution
2. wildflowers, wild-flowers, wild flowers
3. "carbon offset" or "forest restoration"
4. "Ask us" or Krista's email.

Tips for making Google work better for you!

1. Use - before a word to exclude it:  environmental science -law
2. Use quotation marks for words/phrases (see Krista's search tips above):  "green technology"
3. Limit results to a certain site or domain:  site:.edu     site:epa.gov
4. Enter most important term first:  environmental fire effects

See UWW's list for additional tips!

You can accomplish a lot of these same tips by using Google's advanced search!

If you are using Google Scholar (GS) - particularly if you are using it from off campus - you'll want to connect it with Hunter Library's resources.  That means that when you search, GS will include full text options from Hunter library for you.  Once you get that set up, here's what it looks like:

So how do you set this up?  Follow these steps!

1. Go to Google Scholar and look for the three vertical lines in the top left corner.
2. This opens an options menu in Google Scholar.
3. Select "Settings" (it's the one with the gear icon).
4. Look for "Library links" in the list of options in the top left corner.
5. Type in Western Carolina University to search for Hunter Library.
6. Check the box next to Western Carolina University - FullText@WesternCarolinaU.
7. Click the Save button.

And that's it, you will now be linked to many of the library's holdings in Google Scholar.  You can then click on "FullText@WesternCarolinaU" when it appears next to a citation and be taken to WCU's access to the content.  If you are off campus, you will be asked to login.

Council of Scientific Editors Style offers three different systems for citing sources:  citation-name, citation-sequence, and name-year (See links below for additional information).

• Citation-name
  1. End of paper reference list = alphabetic order by last name; each citation numbered
  2. In-text citations = number of reference.
• Citation-sequence
  1. End of paper reference list = arranged by the order in which they appear in the paper; each citation numbered
  2. In-text citations = number of reference.
• Name-year
  1. End of paper reference list = alphabetic order by last name
  2. In-text citations = last name and year of citation in parentheses

Brief guidelines for most commonly used cite types:

Journal citation:  Author(s). Date. Article title. Journal title. Volume(issue):page numbers.

Book citation:  Author(s). Date. Title. Edition. Place of publication: publisher.

Book chapter:  Author(s). Date. Title. Chapter Title.  In: Editor(s) name, editor.  Book Title. Place of publication: publisher. chapter pages.

Website:  Title of Homepage. Date of publication. Edition. Place of publication: publisher; [date updated; date accessed].

CSE Style requires journal titles to be abbreviated (see Journal Title Abbreviations in left column).

There are two main types of articles you'll come across in these databases and here's how to recognize the difference between the two:

Scholarly research article (sometimes called a primary source, a research article, or an empirical research article)

This reports on original research, meaning the researchers conducted their own research, gathered and analyzed data, and reported on the findings.  These articles are recognizable as they are generally organized into IMRAD:

Introduction (which includes a literature review)

Methods

Results

Analysis

Discussion

Scholarly review articles

This articles are generally reporting on what is known about a specific topic and is a survey of the primary research literature.  The authors of these articles are not reporting on their own data or results but rather summarizing others work to develop a broad perspective on the topic. Does not adhere to the IMRAD format.