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BIO 3352 & 4351: Research Methods in Biology

This is a guide to library resources for use in the BIO 3352 & BIO 4351: Research Methods in Biology course. Here you will find databases, electronic journals, tutorials, and other information.

What is AGRICOLA?

 

AGRICOLA (AGRICultural OnLine Access), a database produced by the National Agricultural Library (NAL), consists of two subsets of records.

  • The first contains citations for journal articles that include abstracts.
  • The second consists of bibliographic records describing monographs, serials, audiovisual materials and online content from around the world.

​The database contains 5,200,000+ records and includes printed works from as far back as the 15th century.

AGRICOLA records describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines, including animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, extension and education, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences.

Which One Should I Use? The Government Version or EBSCO Version?

The AGRICOLA Government (USDA) version aka SEARCH  is a great interface for carrying out a basic scoping search - or if you wish to identify a limited number of key references. You can also limit your search to only PubAg with the government version.

  • PubAg is a newer database created by the National Agricultural Library. Its focus is on more recent materials (1995- ) and peer-reviewed articles in particular. It is intended to be for agriculture what PubMed is for medicine-- a freely available database of the literature of the subject. PubAg augments but doesn't replace or supersede Agricola.
  • Note: The USDA version of AGRICOLA works very differently compared to the EBSCO version you will want to make sure you are using terms from the National Agricultural Library Thesaurus (NALT) and be aware that search results may vary from the EBSCO version.

AGRICOLA through EBSCO has an easy-to-use interface that allows for a more comprehensive and systematic search and works easily with citation managers.

Searching in AGRICOLA

  1. Select your search terms
    • Example: cotton, gossypium hirsutum, irrigation, water
    • This works much better than typing in a topic sentence like "What is the effect of irrigation on the weight of cotton produced per hectare?"
  2. Use Boolean Operators to strengthen your search - AND, OR, and NOT
    • Example: (cotton or gossypium hirsutum) and (water or irrigation)
  3. Use the truncation symbol (*) to get variations such as other word endings or plural forms
    • Example: (cotton or gossypium hirsutum) and (water or irrigat*)
      • Using irrigat* instead of irrigation allows you to get results that also include variations of irrigation such as irrigate and irrigates
  4. Click the SEARCH button

Using the Advanced Search option provides additional search limits. Searches may also be limited by author, corporate author, title, journal title (source), subjects, geographic terms, language, affiliation, series, and publication date.

AGRICOLA Indexes or Lists

Agricola has 'indexes' that are lists of authors, journal titles, subjects and geographic terms. There are also indexes of authors' names, country of publication, affiliations, and corporate authors.

*Tip: Watch out for different forms of an author's name if you are trying to find all of his or her work-- they are most commonly listed with initials, rather than full names.

If using the it is a good idea to check the National Agricultural Library Thesaurus (NALT) to see that you are using the best terms for your topic. Some terms are very specific, some are broad-- and some are unexpected.