Research Guides: Frontiers of Science: Home

1. Find Background Information

Why do background research? Reading references sources (such as dictionaries, encyclopedia entries, and handbooks) can:

give you a quick overview of a topic
spark ideas for your research
help you learn and understand difficult concepts
show you which experts are also researching your topic

The following are some resources for background research:

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window Covers all major areas of science, engineering, technology, as well as mathematics and the medical and health sciences.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window Access to Oxford reference titles to which UNC has purchased online versions. UNC does not have access to all titles.

2. Explore Broadly

Summon is a discovery tool that searches across the majority of UNC Libraries resources, including journal and newspaper articles, eBooks, books and other items physically held in Michener and Skinner Libraries, and much more.

Enter your keywords into the single search box to begin finding resources. Use the options on the left to filter your search. And you can email yourself sources you find so you don't lose them!

Summon Single-search box that lets you search across articles, books, and databases.

3. Search Science Databases

If Summon gets you the sources you need, great! But if Summon is giving you too many irrelevant results, you may need to switch to a database that is specific to your subject area. For a full list of databases that you can sort by subject area, see the A-Z Databases list.

Here are some science databases you could try out:

GreenFILE This link opens in a new window Indexes scholarly and general titles as well as government documents, drawing on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology.
MathSciNet This link opens in a new window Online version of the American Mathematical Society's Mathematical Reviews.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Index of journal and book literature from the American Psychological Association.
PubMed This link opens in a new window PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 21 million citations from biomedical and life science journals.
To determine more easily if UNC has access to the full text of articles, login using the username and password available from the online Username and Passwords list. When first logging into PubMed, choose NCBI account. Then you will be asked to enter the username and password associated with this account. For further assistance, contact Michener Library at (970) 351-2671.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window Homepage for content published by Elsevier. UNC does not subscribe to all titles.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window Web of Science includes Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index (1975-present), and Social Sciences Citation Index (1965-present). It offers bibliographic citations and cited references from a broad range of disciplines, and is useful as a citation analysis tool.

4. Cite Your Sources

Summon lets you create a citation for any source in several citations styles, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. See the "Explore Broadly" box on this guide for a link to Summon.

Other citation management tools exist that might be more accessible. Examples include:

5. Get Help with Your Research

Ask a Librarian

Stop by the information desks at Michener or Skinner Libraries to get help finding and evaluating the sources you need. We can help answer your questions about citation, too!

Schedule an appointment with a librarian
Email libraries@unco.edu
Call (970) 351-2671

Learn more about library research

Library Research at UNC: The Guide to Getting Started
Includes tutorials for searching Summon, Google Scholar, and other library resources.