Guides: Biology: Research Resources

Research Resources

Use background information as a starting place for understanding a topic. Search encyclopedias, government websites, NGO websites to learn the vocabulary used to describe your topics and develop keywords.

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research. Scopus delivers the most comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of Science, Technology, Medicine, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities. As research becomes increasingly global, interdisciplinary and collaborative, Scopus helps ensure that crucial research from around the world is not missed.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
Coverage: 1966-
Full Text: Yes
Titles Included | Search Tips | Tutorial
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Full text access to more than 2000 Elsevier science, social science, engineering and management scholarly journals.
Coverage: Varies
Full Text: Yes

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

Biology 2e
Biology - 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology includes rich features that engage students in scientific inquiry, highlight careers in the biological sciences, and offer everyday applications. The book also includes various types of practice and homework questions that help students understand—and apply—key concepts.
Environmental Biology
Environmental Biology enables students to develop a nuanced understanding of today’s most pressing environmental issues. This text helps students grasp the scientific foundation of these issues so that they can better understand the world around them and their impact upon it. This open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues, from a biological perspective.
Concepts of Biology
Concepts of Biology is designed for the typical introductory biology course for nonmajors, covering standard scope and sequence requirements. The text includes interesting applications and conveys the major themes of biology, with content that is meaningful and easy to understand. The book is designed to demonstrate biology concepts and to promote scientific literacy.
Human Biology: Human Anatomy and Physiology
This textbook is ideal for an introductory-level human biology course. It is aligned with the British Columbia Adult Basic Education learning outcomes for Provincial Level Biology, which is the equivalent of Grade 12 Anatomy and Physiology. This textbook begins with an introduction to sciences and the scientific method, and then addresses the human body in increasing scale: from biological molecules, to cells and tissues, to organs and all eleven organ systems, all with an overarching focus on health.
Cells in Evolutionary Biology
This book is the first in a projected series on Evolutionary Cell Biology, the intent of which is to demonstrate the essential role of cellular mechanisms in transforming the genotype into the phenotype by transforming gene activity into evolutionary change in morphology. This book —Cells in Evolutionary Biology — evaluates the evolution of cells themselves and the role cells have been viewed to play as agents of change at other levels of biological organization. Chapters explore Darwin’s use of cells in his theory of evolution and how Weismann’s theory of the separation of germ plasm from body cells brought cells to center stage in understanding how acquired changes to cells within generations are not passed on to future generations.
Molecular Feminisms: Biology, Becomings, and Life in the Lab
"Should feminists clone?” “What do neurons think about?” “How can we learn from bacterial writing?” These and other provocative questions have long preoccupied neuroscientist, molecular biologist, and intrepid feminist theorist Deboleena Roy, who takes seriously the capabilities of lab “objects”—bacteria and other human, nonhuman, organic, and inorganic actants—in order to understand processes of becoming. In Molecular Feminisms, Roy investigates science as feminism at the lab bench, engaging in an interdisciplinary conversation between molecular biology, Deleuzian philosophies, posthumanism, and postcolonial and decolonial studies. She brings insights from feminist theory together with lessons learned from bacteria, subcloning, and synthetic biology, arguing that renewed interest in matter and materiality must be accompanied by a feminist rethinking of scientific research methods and techniques."
A Glimpse into Future Research on Microalgae Diversity, Ecology and Biotechnology
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Microalgae are photosynthetic unicellular microorganisms that represent an extremely important component of the aquatic ecosystem productivity, diversity, and functioning. Moreover, these microorganisms, using a network of signals, interact with all the other organisms present in their environment. Signals are often secondary metabolites that play an important role in competition, defense, attraction, and signaling. These molecules are recognized for having bioactive properties, but some of them are still largely underexplored and underexploited. This Special Issue focuses on studies aimed to improve knowledge on microalgal ecology (diversity and dynamics) in aquatic ecosystems, as well as on their capacity to produce bioactive compounds with potential biotechnological applications.

In the field of biology, primary literature is the publication of information that is original research. In other words, this is the first (or primary) place this information is available to readers. In the sciences, peer-reviewed original research is of special interest because of the rigorous standards that accepted articles must meet in order to be published.

Examples or other terms for primary literature include: scientific paper, research article, journal article, scholarly article, book, monograph (essentially a long journal article), dissertation or thesis, proceedings (published record of a conference), government document, report, notebook, journal, photograph, or database.

Anatomy of a Research Article

Secondary literature is an important part of the research process of a topic. Secondary literature is any form of literature the condenses, synthesizes, or draws upon primary literature. These sources provide a starting place for understanding a topic because they are easy to read and provide background information and they may be useful in pulling out keywords, phrases, or concepts. When using secondary sources it is important to know that is that they are not peer-reviewed and they include a second layer of interpretation of original data that may or may not be correct.

Example include books, review articles, magazine and newspaper articles, handbooks, and factsheets.