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Engineering Librarian
This guide provides relevant information sources for the SSM 4506W Capstone course.
Getting started
- Agricultural & Environmental Science DatabaseSearch journals and literature on agriculture, pollution, animals, environment, policy, natural resources, water issues and more. Searches tools like AGRICOLA, Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management (ESPM), and Digests of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) databases.
- CAB Abstracts Plus Full Text SelectCAB Abstracts covers agriculture in its broadest sense, including crop production, forestry, environment, animal health and nutrition, veterinary science, agricultural engineering, biotechnology, soil and water, agricultural economics, recreation and tourism, rural sociology, and human nutrition and health.
- Web of ScienceA comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of journal article citations. Subjects generally covered are within science and technology, arts and humanities, and social sciences. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
Additional databases
- KnovelOnline access to books, databases, and conference proceedings from a number of publishers that cover all areas of engineering and includes content relevant to related sciences (e.g., chemistry and earth sciences). It includes interactive graphs and tables.
- Sustainability Science AbstractsThis database is a subset of Proquest's Environmental Science Index, exploring human population and demography topics, as well as societal issues involving natural resource management. Includes relevant papers, reports, books and reviews from standard peer-reviewed scientific journals, material from conference proceedings, and hard-to-find gray literature.
Search tips
The following search tips tend to work across different databases:
- Use the word AND to link concepts together: cardboard AND mulch
- Use the word OR with parentheses to search for synonyms: cardboard AND (mulch OR compost)
- Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase: “Waste Reduction Model”
- Use an asterisk to search for multiple endings of a root word: reduc* - to find reduce, reducing, reduction
When searching Google, try adding the following to your topical keywords:
- site:gov, or site:edu, etc.: get results from that specific site type/domain
- filetype:pdf: get only PDFs as results
- Add keywords for the type of source you are looking for, for example: data, statistics, report
- Tutorial: Creating an effective search strategyDevelop effective search strategies for your research papers, case studies, or discussion posts.
Citing sources
- Tutorial: What are citations?Understand what citations are, why they are important, and how to create and use them.
- APA formatting and examples (From Purdue OWL)Examples of the APA citation style.
- Citation Managers (e.g. Zotero, EndNote Online, etc.)Citation managers are software packages used to create personalized databases of citation information and notes. They allow you to: import and organize citation information from article indexes and other sources; save links to pdfs and other documents; format citations for your papers and bibliographies using APA and many other styles; and include your own notes.
Last Updated: Aug 30, 2024 10:02 AM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/SSM4506W