Research Guide for Animal Studies Students

Below are databases used in Animal Studies research. Search through them to find journal articles related to your topic. The list is organized by subject matter, starting with Animal Studies broadly and then broken down by concentration.

To find other library databases, go to the library website and select Databases under the Resources and Services tab.

Animal Studies

• American Veterinary Medical Association
  • This is the website for the archives of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). Here you can access full-text articles from from 2000 through the present. Published twice monthly, this peer-reviewed, general scientific journal provides reports of clinical research, feature articles, and regular columns of interest to veterinarians in private and public practice.
• BMC Veterinary Research
  • This  is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of veterinary science and medicine, including the epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of medical conditions of domestic, companion, farm and wild animals, as well as the biomedical processes that underlie their health.
• CAB Abstracts (formerly VetMed)*
  • CAB Abstracts includes everything from VetMed Resource plus a LOT more: subjects include agriculture, environment, veterinary sciences, plant sciences, mycology and parasitology, food science, human health, and nutrition. Over 449,000 full-text journal articles, reports, and conference proceedings.
• Merck Veterinary Manual
  • Provides veterinarians and other animal health professionals with concise and authoritative information on diseases and management of food-producing, companion, laboratory, and exotic animals.
• SocINDEX
  • SocINDEX with Full Text offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study such as anthropology, social work, and criminal justice.
• Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences
  • Includes articles on epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions covering all domestic, wild, avian, and aquatic species. The journal covers all disciplines of life sciences engaged in the field of Animal and Veterinary sciences.
• Veterinary Medicine and Science
  • This is an international open access journal which publishes original, high quality, peer-reviewed articles on all aspects of veterinary medicine and science relating to companion, production and zoo animals.
• Veterinary Sciences
  • This is an international, scientific, open access journal on veterinary sciences published quarterly online by MDPI.

When searching in the library databases, it can be helpful to narrow your search results by using filters. There are many catagories by which you can filter. Find some particularly helpful filter examples below.

Biology/Psychology Concentration

• arXiv
  • arXiv is an open access database founded in 1991 that provides free access to journal articles in a wide range of scientific and quantitative disciplines, including Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, Statistics, Electrical Engineering and Systems Science, and Economics.
• bioRxiv
  •  A free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences.
    Articles are not peer-reviewed, edited, or typeset before being posted online. However, all articles undergo a basic screening process for offensive and/or non-scientific content and for material that might pose a health or biosecurity risk and are checked for plagiarism.
• Psychology & Behavioral Sciences
  •  A comprehensive database covering information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational & experimental methods. This is the world's largest full text psychology database offering full text coverage for nearly 400 journals.
• PsycINFO
  • The PsycINFO database, American Psychological Association’s (APA) renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains over 3 million records and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages.
• ScienceDirect
  • Science Direct contains over 2,500 journals in a wide range of Science disciplines. Access to articles is restricted to abstract only for most journals. Please contact a librarian for more information on obtaining full articles.
• Science.gov
  • Science.gov searches over 42 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
• Science Reference Center
  • Designed to meet every student researcher's needs, Science Reference Center contains full text for hundreds of science magazines, journals, encyclopedias, reference books and a vast collection of images.

Environmental Science Concentration

• Agricola
  • Search for citations and abstracts on agricultural topics as well as a variety of related fields, including veterinary, plant, and environmental sciences. Note: Free access to this database is provided by the National Agricultural Library.
• Annual Reviews
  • Annual Reviews publications are among the most highly cited in the scientific literature. Topics include Psychology, Biology, Biochemistry and Sociology.
• Environment Complete
  • Contains more than 2.4 million records from more than 2,200 domestic and international titles going back to 1888 (including over 1,350 active core titles) as well as more than 190 monographs. The database also contains full text for more than 920 journals
• GreenFILE
  • Offers information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Includes scholarly, government, and general-interest titles. This multidisciplinary database draw on connections between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health, and technology. Contains abstracts as well as full-text for select articles.
• Points of View Reference Center
  • Contains 400 topics, each with an overview (objective background / description), point (argument) and counterpoint (opposing argument). Each topic features a Guide to Critical Analysis which helps the reader evaluate the controversy and enhances students’ ability to read critically, develop their own perspective on the issues, and write or debate an effective argument on the topic.

English and Communications Concentration

• Academic Search Complete
  • Full-Text: science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women's studies, zoology and many other fields.
• JSTOR
  • Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. Contains full-text articles from core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, many of which date from the 1800s.

Here you will find a list of online tools that you might find helpful in your Animal Studies course work.

• BestBETs for Vets
  • Developed by the University of Nottingham, this website provides reviews of the current evidence available for common and specific clinical veterinary questions.
• Climate.gov
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website provides information for the understanding of climate-related events. Information includes news, maps & data, teaching resources, etc.
• Consultant
  • A diagnostic support system for veterinary medicine, developed by the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
• Online Veterinary Anatomy Museum
  • A collection of anatomy resources organized into categories according to the species, system and region covered
• WikiVet
  • One of the largest collections of online veterinary education resources
• WiscOnline
  • A series of interactive learning modules for veterinary technicians

Google Scholar is another great tool for academic research.  It searches just as easily as a normal Google search, but it limits the results to scholarly books and journal articles on your topic.

Through Google Scholar you may find:

• Links to full-text articles from publisher websites (make sure that the link takes you to a final version, not a pre-publication version)
• Links to free full-text articles from PubMed - the National Library of Medicine's repository of journal articles
• Links to free full-text articles from ScienceDirect - a website that provides access to a very large database of scientific and medical publications

***Google Scholar may link you to a website that does not contain the full-text of an article and instead, asks you to pay a certain amount of money to gain access to the article.  Please don't pay for an article.  We may be able to get you a copy of that article through Interlibrary Loan.  For more information, click here.***

Google Scholar Find It @ Wilson Links     

To get the most out of Google Scholar, set your Google Scholar profile to include links to articles and resources from the Wilson College library.
For step-by-step instructions on how to set this up, click here: Linking Wilson Library to Google Scholar.pdf

As you are searching for journal articles, you may notice that not every article is available in full-text, meaning you can't pull the whole article up on the screen and read it immediately.  We can get you access to most articles via a service called Interlibrary Loan.  If you find a good article in CINAHL but you see this Request Through Interlibrary Loan instead of a PDF link, click on the link and fill in your information.  A member of the library staff will request a copy of the article from another library.  If the request is granted you will receive an email in approximately 3-5 business days with directions on how to access your article.  If the request cannot be filled, you will receive an email about that.  For more information on Interlibrary Loan, click here.  Please note: some articles are made freely available by the publisher and/or the authors. I would recommend checking Google Scholar before you submit the Interlibrary Loan request.  Cut and paste the title of the article into Google Scholar and look for a full-text link on the right-hand side.  If no link is available, go ahead and submit the request.

LibKey 

The library has access to a service called LibKey. LibKey makes it easier to find the full-text of many scholarly journal articles online.  When you search the library databases you will see a LibKey Instant PDF link for some of the sources you find.  This link directly connects you to the full-text for open access content that is freely available on the web.  With this service, you will experience less clicks and find fewer broken links.

LibKey also has a browser extension (for most common browsers) you can download which helps you easily connect to subscribed content from the library.  You will see PDF links as you explore publisher websites, Wikipedia, PubMed, Science Direct and more. You can download the LibKey browser extension here.

For more information about LibKey, including a step-by-step guide on how to install the browser extension, watch this video:  LibKey Tool Information and Installation.

Note: For formatting purposes, it's best to use Word in the desktop app rather than the web version.  Click on Editing in the top-right corner and click Open in Desktop App.

Paper Basics

• Font should be Times New Roman 12pt
• Page numbers should be in top-right corner
• The entire paper should be double-spaced
• IMPORTANT - Running head - most nursing professors at Wilson prefer you include a running head even though the student version of APA 7th ed. does not require one.  The running head is an abbreviated form of the paper title and should be included in the header, beginning on the left-hand side of the screen.  The running head should be in ALL CAPS.

Step by Step Directions for the Title Page

• Make sure your font is set to Times New Roman 12 pt
• Click on paragraph settings to set the spacing to double
• Click on insert and insert page numbers top-right 
• Click on Insert again, choose Header and click on Edit Header (this allows you to add your running head and keep your page numbers running continuously)             
• Click enter until you think you are at the middle of the page
• Type your paper title (centered and bolded)
• Follow your professor's guidelines regarding what other information you should include on the title page 

If you need to include an Abstract page, here are some tips:

• The word Abstract should be centered and bolded at the top of the second page
• The Abstract paragraph should NOT be indented. It should start flush-left at the left margin

Here are some tips for formatting the Refernces page.

• The References page should always begin on a separate page
• The word References should be bolded and centered at the top of the page
• The entire page should be double-spaced just like the rest of the paper
• References should be in alphabetical order by the author's last name.  If there is no author, use the title of the source
• All citations on the References page should use a hanging indent.

The hanging indent function can be found by clicking on Layout and then the Paragraph button.  Drop down the Special menu and choose Hanging.

Sample References Page:

:

Paper Formatting Resources:

APA Formatting and Citations - 7th ed. Video Tutorial

APA Paper Formatting and Citations for Nursing - 7th ed.pdf

There are two different types of citations.

In-text citations

APA follows the author-date method. The author's last name and the year of publication should appear in the text. If there is no author, use the title of the source instead.

• Two authors: (Wegener & Petty, 1994)
• Three or more authors: (Taylor et al., 2018)

Tips:

• Paraphrasing material instead of directly quoting information is preferred
• If you have a page number you should include it in the in-text citation: (Park, 2015, p. 41)
• You have two options for in-text citations:
  • you can put the in-text citation at the end of the sentence before the period like this: The Maine lobster industry is struggling due to rising sea levels and water temperature changes (Park, 2015).
  • you can use a signal phrase and include the in-text citation in the sentence like this: According to Park (2015), the Maine lobster industry is struggling due to rising sea levels and water temperature changes.
• Signal phrase verb examples: claims, argues, suggests, writes, mentions, describes, comments, and notes

Reference citations

Examples of the most commonly cited sources:

Website

Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium.

      Retrieved March 18, 2020,

      from https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-

3af27e312d01

Journal Article

Drollinger, T., Comer, L. B. & Warington, P. T. (2006). Development and validation of

     the active empathetic listening scale. Psychology &

     Marketing, 23(2), 161-180.

Book

Stoneman, R. (2008). Alexander the Great: A life in legend.

     Yale University Press.

Tips:

• Citations should be double-spaced
• The second line should be indented (hanging indent)
• Sources should be listed in alphabetical order by authors' last names  (by title if there is no author)
• Only initials should be used for first and middle names (Smith, M. R.)
• The date follows the authors' names
• Journal articles are tricky:
  • Journal titles should be italicized and all words should be capitalized
  • Only the first word, the word after the colon, and proper nouns should be capitalized in article titles
  • Volume numbers should be italicized, but issue numbers are not

Purdue OWL

Click here for the APA Formatting and Style Guide from the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

Excelsior College

Click here for the APA style guide from Excelsior University Online Writing Lab.

APA Formatting and Citations - 7th ed. Video Tutorial

APA Paper Formatting and Citations for Nursing - 7th ed 2024.pdf

APA Style Quick Guide 2024.pdf

Important Note: Please do not simply cut and past a citation created by Google Scholar, the library databases, or another citation generator.  These citations are generated by computers and almost always incorrect.  You can cut and paste citations so that you don't have to type out all of the pieces by hand; however, you must check the citations with your own eyes before turning in your assignments.  A librarian is always available to check your APA citations before you turn in an assignment.  If you are unsure of how to cite a particular source or you would like a librarian to check over your References page, use the Ask a Librarian form to reach a librarian.

Librarians are here to help you at any stage of the research process - from narrowing down a topic to searching for sources to formatting citations.

Research help is available via email, in-person, over the phone or through Zoom. 

To set up an appointment with a librarian or to ask general questions about the library, use the Ask a Librarian form

PowerNotes is a tool that helps you save, annotate, organize, and cite the sources you find in library databases and on the web.  Additionally, PowerNotes offers you the opportunity to create paper outlines, avoid accidental plagiarism, and keep track of the sources you plan to use in your research projects. 

Go to PowerNotes to create your account and get started.  Remember to use @wilson.edu when creating your account.  Here you will also find links to available PowerNotes browser extensions.  Information on getting started with PowerNotes can be found here: Getting Started with PowerNotes.

Want to learn more about the functionality of PowerNotes, visit their library of video tutorials here: PowerNotes Video Tutorials Blog.

All currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students at Wilson have access to the Wilson College Writing Lab, which provides both in-person and online support. Students can come to the writing lab for help with writing assignments in any discipline, at any stage of the writing process - including brainstorming, drafting, revising, and proofreading.

Types of Writing Lab Appointments

• In-person Appointments - meet with your tutor in the Academic Success Center (2nd floor of the library)
• Real-time Appointments via Zoom - meet with your tutor on Zoom (link provided)
• Asynchronous Appointments - upload your draft to WCONLINE and a tutor will review it and send you feedback (you do not need to be online for this appointment; the tutor will review your draft and give you feedback during the allotted appointment time)

To schedule an appointment with a writing tutor, click here. Please note: The Writing Lab schedule of appointments fills up very quickly.  It is hightly recommended that you look through your syllabi and schedule your Writing Lab appointments in advance of assignment due dates.  More than one appointment will be needed for longer and more complex paper assignments.

There is some overlap with the services provided by the Academic Success Center and the Library. If you would like to focus on one particular area of the research and writing process, here are some good rules of thumb to consider:

Academic Success Center - If you need help refining your thesis statement, organizing your paper, developing transitions between paragraphs, integrating information from outside sources into your paper, or addressing grammar and mechanics, you should consider making an appointment with a writing tutor.

Library - If you need help finding a few more sources to back up your ideas, formatting your paper, generating citations in your references page, or structuring your in-text citations, you should consider meeting with a personal librarian.

We encourage you to use both resources and for best results, come early and often!

***It is important to follow the guidelines provided by your instructor AND share them with both the writing tutor and the librarian.***