LibGuides: Natural Sciences: Articles on Your Topic

Recommended Databases: Start Here

Medline This link opens in a new window
The National Library of Medicine's authoritative database for biomedical and health sciences literature.
Medline indexes approximately 5,000 of the world's leading biomedical journals. Coverage includes medicine, nursing, dentistry, and healthcare systems. Content emphasizes peer-reviewed research and clinical studies. This database is fundamental for health sciences research and evidence-based practice.
Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive research database covering all aspects of environmental studies and related fields.
Environment Complete provides extensive coverage of environmental issues including ecology, energy, natural resources, and pollution. The database offers full text access to scholarly journals and reference works. Content spans academic research and practical applications. This resource supports environmental science research and policy analysis.
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive nursing and allied health research database, essential for healthcare education and practice.
CINAHL Complete provides full text access to hundreds of nursing and allied health journals, plus books and evidence-based care sheets. The database covers over 5,000 journals with extensive indexing. Content includes clinical innovations, patient care protocols, and healthcare management. This resource is crucial for nursing education, research, and clinical practice.
Agricola This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive database of agricultural research, covering publications in agriculture, nutrition, forestry, animal science, and related fields.
Agricola provides access to bibliographic records from the National Agricultural Library and other institutions. The database covers all aspects of agriculture and related sciences, including forestry, animal science, and environmental topics. Content includes journal articles, books, and audiovisual materials. This resource is valuable for researchers, practitioners, and students in agricultural and environmental sciences.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
The premier database for biomedical literature, providing comprehensive access to life sciences research.
PubMed comprises over 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE and other sources. Content includes links to full-text articles through various platforms. The database is updated daily with new research. This resource is essential for medical research, healthcare practice, and life sciences study.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive abstract and citation database covering research output across all fields of study.
Scopus Index tracks and analyzes global research across sciences, mathematics, and humanities. The database includes content from thousands of journals and publishers worldwide. Features include citation analysis and author metrics. This tool supports research evaluation and scholarly literature discovery.
SciFinder Scholar This link opens in a new window
The premier chemistry and related sciences research tool providing comprehensive access to chemical information. First-time users are required to create an account.
SciFinder Scholar searches Chemical Abstracts Service databases covering multiple scientific disciplines. Content includes journal articles, patents, and chemical substance information. The database offers structure searching and reaction exploring capabilities. This resource is essential for chemistry research and related sciences.

Open Access Journals - Biology

PLOS Journals: Animal Behavior Articles
PLOS ONE is an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future. Founded with the aim of accelerating the pace of scientific advancement and demonstrating its value, we believe all rigorous science deserves to be published and should be discoverable, widely disseminated and freely accessible to all.
PLOS Biology
PLOS Biology publishes significant advances across the biological sciences. And we push boundaries.
Designed to advance science and the communities who depend upon it, we’re transforming research communication to fit the research process. Evolving article types and policies empower authors to share the full story behind their science with a global audience of researchers, educators, policy makers, patient advocacy groups, and the public.
PLOS Climate
PLOS Climate publishes work that is methodologically rigorous and adheres to the principles of transparency and ethics that are the bedrock of trust and progress. Research from every angle and every region of the world is considered, including but not limited to earth, ocean and atmospheric science, palaeoclimatology, climate-smart energy and engineering, adaptation, mitigation, climate economics, social and health impacts of climate change, policy and governance, ethics and philosophy, and climate-related behavior and psychology.
BioRxiv
bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.

Searching Tips

Keywords are:

A good place to start research
The important concepts in your own words
Found anywhere in the article (title, author, subject terms, etc.)
Very flexible

Connecting Concepts:

Join similar ideas or alternate terms with "OR" to broaden search.
Link different parts of your topic with "AND" to narrow down search
Exclude concepts with "NOT"

Limit to Peer-Reviewed, Refereed or Scholarly articles:

This is the part of the publication and editorial process for academic and research articles. Being peer-reviewed is a sign that a paper's author(s) have done a certain level of due diligence in their work and their research is complete, manages conflicts of interest, and is fair and objective.

Narrow the Date Range:

When looking for Current Research or Evidence-Based Practices limit your date range to the last 3-5 years.

Still not finding anything? Ask a Librarian!

PDF or Click Here for Full Text

When you're looking at search results in a database you're going to see a few different ways to get to the full article, usually either:

Both of these will take you to the article (if we have access).

If you see the Access Options screen below, it means we don't have full-text access to the article. Try Google Scholar first to see if it's available for free. If not, click Request via Interlibrary Loan. We'll get the article for you from another library, usually within a few days.

Open Access Journals - Chemistry

ChemRxiv
ChemRxiv (pronounced 'chem-archive') is a free submission, distribution, and archive service for unpublished preprints in chemistry and related areas. ChemRxiv gives researchers across a broad range of fields related to the chemical sciences the opportunity to share early results with colleagues and receive recommendations for improvement, ahead of formal peer review and publication.
American Chemical Society (ACS) Open Access Chemistry Journals
ACS publishes a range of fully open access journals, covering all aspects of the chemical sciences and related fields.
MDPI Chemistry
Chemistry is a peer-reviewed, open access journal of chemistry, published quarterly online by MDPI.
PLOS Chemistry
PLOS ONE is an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future. Founded with the aim of accelerating the pace of scientific advancement and demonstrating its value, we believe all rigorous science deserves to be published and should be discoverable, widely disseminated and freely accessible to all.
Royal Society of Chemistry
It’s our mission to help you make the world a better place. Open access is crucial to achieving this. We believe that it is the key to building a fairer, more equitable society. One where everyone can access and benefit from discoveries – including researchers, funders, policymakers and the general public.

Open Access Journals - Physics

Institute of Physics
"IOP Publishing provides publications through which leading-edge scientific research is distributed worldwide. IOP Publishing is central to the Institute of Physics (IOP), a not-for-profit society. Any financial surplus earned by IOP Publishing goes to support science through the activities of IOP."
arXiv.org
A searchable electronic archive and distribution server for research papers. Covered areas include physics and related disciplines, mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computational linguistics, and neuroscience.
CERN Document Server
Provides access to materials on a number of preprint servers in the physical sciences. Covers preprints, articles, books, journals, photographs, and much more, with over 800,000 bibliographic records and 360,000 full text documents.
HEPSearch
Indexes more than 500,000 high-energy physics related articles, including journal papers, preprints, e-prints, technical reports, conference papers and theses.
Open Access Directory - Physics
Identify electronic journals in the fields of Physics and Astronomy that are scholarly, peer-reviewed, full text, and accessible without cost.