BMEN 1601: Undergraduate Seminar

Article databases

Search tips 

• Use the word AND to link concepts together: innovation AND product complexity
• Use the word OR with parentheses to search for synonyms: education AND (AI OR artificial intelligence)
• Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase: “knowledge management”
• Use an asterisk to search for multiple endings of a root word: comput* - to find compute, computer, computing, computation

You can also find a relevant journal, browse recent issues for research articles, and choose a device that way. A good way to identify relevant journals is to do some searching for articles and see which journals they are published in. You don't need to stay committed to whatever specific topic brought you to that journal!

Article requirements

Remember, your key reference must be a technical research article, not a clinical one. You are looking for a study performed in a controlled setting, like in an animal model or lab setting (rarely in a human subject). See examples below:

Controlled / lab setting:

B.-S. Lin, C.-Y. Huang, C.-Y. Chen, and J.-H. Lin, “Design of a finger base-type pulse oximeter,” Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 87, no. 1, p. 013108, Jan. 2016, doi: 10.1063/1.4940237.

N. Agwu, E. Leuthardt, and J. Gorlewicz, “Design and Validation of a Steerable Port Delivery Cannula System for Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy,” Journal of Medical Devices, pp. 1–31, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1115/1.4056504.

Clinical setting (avoid these for your key reference):

K. Baker et al., “Performance of five pulse oximeters to detect hypoxaemia as an indicator of severe illness in children under five by frontline health workers in low resource settings – A prospective, multicentre, single-blinded, trial in Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda,” eClinicalMedicine, vol. 38, p. 101040, Aug. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101040.

You can try a couple things to determine if the journal an article is published in is peer reviewed:

1. Find the journal website and look for information "about this journal." Does it indicate that it undergoes peer review?
2. Search Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (linked below) with your journal title. Look for the referee's jersey icon indicating the journal is "refereed":

Remember, some peer-reviewed journals also include letters and editorials that are not peer-reviewed. However, the type of article that your key reference is should be peer-reviewed if it is appearing in a peer-reviewed journal.