The document provides guidance on how to search online databases to find a research paper for an assignment. It discusses searching specific databases like Web of Science, ScienceDirect and PubMed to find recent journal articles related to course material. It provides tips for conducting effective searches using keywords, Boolean operators, and limiting searches by date range and journal. Database searches can be refined to find the most relevant results. Full text of articles is available through the library resources.

1. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 HOW TO FIND A RESEARCH PAPER BY SEARCHING ONLINE DATABASES PRESENTED BY JEN EIDELMAN UCT LIBRARIES 2011 E-mail: [email_address] Telephone: 021 650 2773

2. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 Guidelines on Writing Skills Prac Essay for 2019S Hapgood 2011 The main objectives of the essay are 1) to practice your scientific writing skills 2) to learn some library and referencing skills and access papers in journals 3) to facilitate integration of the course material and see how a recent publication relates to some course material.

3. LIBRARY WEB PAGE: http://www.lib.uct.ac.za This is where you will find a link to your Subject Guide : MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 – WHERE TO START? - Subject Guide

4. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 – LINK TO SUBJECT GUIDE This is your library guide: http://libguides.lib.uct.ac.za/molecular_cell_biology

5. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 Subject Guide - Referencing and Writing Use these links for referencing examples and referencing information.

6. To find journal articles you need to search in DATABASES that contain information relating to your subjects. Access this list of databases from the subject guide. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 – Subject Guide

7. Find databases that relate to your subjects This is an A-Z list of life sciences databases MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 List of Life Sciences Databases http:// www.lib.uct.ac.za/scitech/lifebases.htm

8. ‘ Web of Science, ‘ PubMed ’ and ‘ ScienceDirect ’ and are just some of the databases which you may wish to use to search for a journal article. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 Life Sciences Databases http:// www.lib.uct.ac.za/scitech/lifebases.htm

9. We will search in these databases: Web of Science ScienceDirect PubMed MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011

10. Web of Science

11. Change the drop down menu to ‘Topic’ Limit your search by choosing the timespan from 2008 to present Search tips: Combine keywords with ‘AND’. For example a search for “progesterone receptor*” AND Activator Protein I .This search will retrieve articles with all of those keywords. Using ‘ AND ’ will narrow your search results. By using ‘OR’ the search engine will retrieve articles with either Activator Protein I OR Progesterone response element, not necessarily both together. Using OR will broaden your search results. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE

12. MORE SEARCH TIPS: You will notice in this search we used quotation marks and an asterisk to conduct the search. Use quotation marks to search for a phrase “ progesterone receptor* ” By using an asterisk * after a word, for example, receptor* the search engine will find both receptor and receptor s This asterisk is called a wildcard and can be used in front of a word as well. For example *oxide will find peroxide, iron oxide etc. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE

13. This search returned 125 articles. Results can be refined even further by using the ‘Refine results’ menu MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE

14. Your search may be refined by choosing a specific journal title (Source Title). For example you may wish to see only articles in the journal called ‘Molecular Endocrinology’. Tick the box and choose ‘Refine’. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE

15. The search has been refined to 20 articles Click SFX to check the availability of the article MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE

16. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 WEB OF SCIENCE In this instance the full text is available. Click on the GO button.

17. Click on Full Text ( PDF ) to read the article

18. Click on the Save icon to save the article

19. SCIENCEDIRECT

20. 1. Click ‘Search ’ 2. Choose ‘ Journals’ from the tab 3. Choose ‘Abstract, Title, Keyword ’ from the drop down menu. Type your keywords in the search boxes. 5. Limit your search by date . Choose 2008 to present from the drop down menu. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical - 2011 SCIENCEDIRECT 4. Limit the search to include journal articles 6. Click ‘Search ’

21. 58 articles found MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 SCIENCEDIRECT

22. You may wish to refine your search even further by choosing a specific Journal title. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 SCIENCEDIRECT Tick the box next to the journal name and then click ‘Limit to’

23. 3 Articles found Click PDF to see the full text of the article The green box indicates that the full text is available MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 SCIENCEDIRECT

24. PUBMED

25. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 PUBMED SEARCH: “ RNA polymerase II” AND “transcription initiation” AND 2008:2011[publication date]

26. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 PUBMED SEARCH TIP 1: Use quotation marks to search for terms as a phrase e.g. “ RNA polymerase II” will find all those words together in that sequence . SEARCH TIP 2: Use capital letters – AND - to combine different search terms. Using the word AND will narrow down your search. The search engine will return results that contain all of the words. SEARCH TIP 3: To look for a range of dates , use the colon : e.g . 2008:2011 will find all publications from 2008 to 2011 SEARCH TIP 4: Use the command and square brackets to tell the search engine which field to look in. For example [publication date] - looks for articles using the dates specified [journal name] - looks for articles in the journal specified e.g. Nature[journal name] - looks for articles in the journal called nature.

27. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 PUBMED RESULTS OF SEARCH No 1.

28. MCB 2019S - Writing Skills Practical – 2011 PUBMED RESULTS OF SEARCH No. 2 SEARCH: “ leucine zippers” AND dimerization AND journal of biological chemistry[journal name]