PL S 330 : Plant Propagation
For further assistance, contact Jim Martin or Jeanne Pfander.
Agricola
Covers all aspects of agriculture and related disciplines, including farming and farming systems. (1970-Present)
BIOSIS
Global coverage of all areas of life sciences. (1969-Present)
CAB
International coverage of agriculture, forestry, and allied life and applied sciences. (1972-Present)
Web of Science / Science Citation Index
A citation index is a compilation of all the cited references from journal articles published during a particular year or group of years. In a citation index, you can look up a work that you know to find new material that has cited it.
A step-by-step guide to finding cited references in Web of Science.
Instructions for importing Web of Science records into RefWorks.
Searching Tips : Agricola, BIOSIS, and CAB
Using Synonyms
When searching for articles, don't forget to include synonyms for your topic. For example, determine both the common and scientific names for the plant you are researching as well as alternate terms for plant propagation. Use parentheses and the or operator to enclose like terms:
(alfalfa or lucerne or Medicago sativa) and (propagation or breeding or production)
Using Truncation and Wildcards
Use truncation or wildcards to retrieve variations of your search term.
The truncation symbol (*) substitutes for a string of zero or more characters. For example, cat* retrieves cat, catatonic, catatonia, category, etc.
The wildcard symbol (?) in WebSPIRS databases substitutes for one character or none. For example, m?cdonald retrieves both mcdonald and macdonald. The search tree? retrieves tree or trees or treed, etc.
Limiting
You can limit the number of records you retrieve by specifying that you only want to see a record if it contains a specific term within one of its database fields, such as the title field.
Enter the search term, and the field you want to find it in, into the text entry box, like this:
drought in ti
You can also use the drop-down list of fields on the advanced search page to limit. Enter the word or words, select the desired limit field from the drop-down list, and click the search button. WebSPIRS (WebSPIRS is the name of the interface for the Agricola, BIOSIS, and CAB databases) will search for the term(s) in the specified field and display the results.
Other useful limit fields include language and year of publication. On the right side of the WebSPIRS search screen, under the “Limit Search To” box, click on “More”. You will then see a list of all limits for the database(s) you are searching. Select the limit you want to set by clicking on its name. The system will display possible values for the limit. Select the value(s) for the limit you desire and then click OK. The system will apply the limit(s) to your most recent search and to subsequent searches.
Changing How Results Display
The Change Display page lets you specify how and when you want WebSPIRS databases (Agricola, BIOSIS, CAB, etc.) to display retrieved records. Click on the “Change Display” button on any page displaying search results.
You can specify whether or not to display duplicate records and which records to give priority to. For example, select Abstract if you want to give priority to records with abstracts.
You can also select the fields you want to display within retrieved records. WebSPIRS has a default set of display fields. If you want to display other fields, select Specific Fields and then click on the Change Fields button. WebSPIRS will open the Change Fields page where you can choose the fields you want to display.
You can also use the drop-down list to choose pre-set field options, for example “citation and abstract”.
Another way to change your display is to sort by specified fields. In the same Change Display page mentioned above, use the drop-down list for Sort options. I recommend sorting by Source (the title of the journal or publication in which the article appears). Select either an Ascending (A-Z) or Descending (Z-A) sort. (I prefer Ascending for alphabetical sorts.)
Plant Sciences Research Guide - a "pathfinder" created at the UA Library that lists print and electronic resources in the UA Library and on the Web for the plant sciences.
Plants Database - A USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service web resource, the Plants Database provides information on plant characteristics, cultural significance, distribution, etc.
Fire Effects Information System - This website, developed at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station's Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana, has a searchable section on plant species that gives extremely detailed plant summaries.
RefWorks is a web based research tool designed to help you easily manage citations and generate automatically formatted bibliographies for your papers.
See also the UA Library's guide to citation styles in Biology .