Library Guides: BIOL 424 Seeds of Change: The Uses of Plants (Dr. Princiotta): Plants and People Assignment

Identifying a topic

Searching "plants and people" in our databases will retrieve many results, and you might need to narrow the results by filtering them. More specific searches such as "seaweed and toothpaste" or "chamomile and hair dye" will bring back fewer, but more focused results. You may also want to try searching "ethnobotany" or a specific author or researcher as well.

If you are unsure what you would like to search, use your Course Textbooks to help identify topics of interest, or browse the general reference entries under Ethnobotany Reference Resources for more information.

Approved magazines to search

The following magazines have been approved by your professor as resources to search for articles:

American Scientist
Contains reviews of important scientific work in all fields, from molecular biology to computer engineering.
National Geographic Magazine Archive
Featuring the complete archive of the magazine from 1888 to 1994, National Geographic Magazine Archive includes every page and every photograph, providing in-depth coverage of cultures, nature, science, technology and the environment. The database is fully searchable by subject, geography, or image.

Databases to search

LionSearch This link opens in a new window
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science provides access to: the Science Citation Index Expanded 1900-present; the Social Sciences Citation Index 1956-present; and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index 1975-present. Web of Science indexes articles from thousands of journals and also indexes the citations used in those articles, thus allowing the user to see which papers have cited a core paper, and how many times a paper was cited in a given time period. Covers published content is almost every discipline.
SpringerLink (full text journal articles and electronic books) This link opens in a new window
Access to electronic editions of journals and electronic books to which Penn State University Libraries subscribes, published by a company called Springer-Verlag. Journals cover the fields of chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, environmental sciences, geosciences, life sciences, mathematics, medicine, and physics. Coverage: 1996-present. Updates: Continuous
Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide This link opens in a new window
Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide is the world's largest index to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. All aspects of wildlife and wildlife management are covered, with a global perspective. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, zoology, taxonomy and much more. Coverage is 1935 to present.