Online Protocols
Electronic Books
Faculty of 1000
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Faculty of 1000
Identifies important biology and medical papers based on the recommendations of leading
scientists. Particularly useful for biomedical graduate students and researchers.
Patent Databases
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Patent Search Resources lists freely
accessible, searchable websites for finding patents that have been filed in the U.S. and
worldwide.
Web Search Engines
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Google
Every body uses it, but are you using it WELL?
Discover some quick tips for
better searches at GoogleGuide.
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Google Scholar
Searches through the full text of many author, publisher, and open access sites for quality
research materials. Look for the "Discover at UIUC links" when using Google Scholar-- you'll be
linked to full text provided by the Illinois Library!
Tips for effective searching.
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Scirus
A search engine for "science" websites. Allows researchers to search for not only
journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and
institutional repository and website information.
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Entrez
Use
Entrez to search multiple NCBI databases at
once, including PubMed, GenBank, PubChem, Nucleotide, Protein, etc.!
TIP: If you're a Firefox user, you can add search engines to the search box
on the Firefox toolbar (where the default search engine is Google). To find and add search
engines, go to the
Mozilla Mycroft Project page. Among the
search engines available for Firefox:
PubMed U of I full text; Google Scholar; Scirus; Amazon; Wikipedia; U of Illinois Easy
Search; YouTube; and many, many, more! To switch to use one of your chosen search engines,
just click on the drop-down arrow, select the search engine, and type in your query!
General Guides for Life Sciences Researchers
How to Use Databases
How to Set up Auto-alerts
Auto-alerts are emails that are sent to you from citation databases or the publishers of
journals. Alerts help you keep up to date on published research in a particular topic, keep track
of your colleagues' research, or enable you to receive the table of contents of selected journals.
Go to our
Keeping Current page to learn how to set up
auto-alerts.
Ten Simple Rules Collection
Written by
PLoS Computational Biology Editor-in-Chief Philip E. Bourne, sometimes with collaborators,
the "
Ten Simple Rules" provide
a quick, concentrated guide for mastering some of the professional challenges research scientists
face in their careers. Topic include:
