Key Resources
For articles describing primary research using scientific methods, written by experts in the field or scientists, try these biomedical, biology and life sciences databases:
- Knovel Library This link opens in a new windowInteractive ebooks and databases for scientific and engineering information.
- Engineering Village This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive interdisciplinary database focused on engineering and computer science. Engineering Village contains the latest academic articles, conference papers and proceedings, dissertations, government reports, book chapters and more.
- Web of Science, Core Collection 1975-present This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science is an interdisciplinary database that indexes over 11,000 scholarly journals (1975-present). Use for citation tracking, finding seminal literature, data visualizations, author alerts, institutional affiliations, and impact factors.
- PubMed (NU customized) This link opens in a new windowMore than just medical literature, PubMed was developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and publishers of life sciences literature. PubMed consists of 34 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals and online books. While the database itself is a free web resource, the articles within are not always freely available. This link will prompt you to login with your Northeastern username and password to view articles from Northeastern-subscribed journals.
- Scite.ai This link opens in a new windowAn AI-powered research platform that analyzes and provides citation context for scientific papers, helping researchers evaluate the credibility and impact of scholarly articles. Account registration is necessary for some features.
Tackling a new topic?
Try looking for a review article first. Review articles attempt to summarize the state of research on a scientific topic. While lengthy, & not generally including the very latest research, review articles are a great way to start to get a handle on a topic.
Don't overlook the literature cited at the end of the review - the bibliography contains a wealth of information about the key discoveries & main researchers in the field.
Most databases (including PubMed & Web of Science below) will allow you to limit your search to include only review articles or literature reviews.
Featured resource: JoVE
JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) is a science video resource that includes a variety of resources for use in the classroom and in the lab. It has two components:
- JoVE Science EducationJoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) Science Education is a video database dedicated to teaching laboratory fundamentals through simple, easy to understand video demonstrations. Each video is paired with additional video resources for you to view practical applications of the technique and other complementary skills.
- JoVE Video Journals (All)The Journal of Visualized Experiments is a set of scientific video journals dedicated to advancing science by increasing reproducibility and efficient knowledge transfer. Articles combine high-quality video demonstrations of experiments with detailed text protocols. All content is peer-reviewed and indexed in Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and more.
Below are a few links to components of JoVE relevant for Biology: