Useful sources for finding recent research in all sciences, where you might find interesting topics, are the weekly magazines Science News and New Scientist. In addition, the premier journals SCIENCE and NATURE include the latest innovative research across the sciences. Premier licensed water resources journals include Water Research and Journal of Hydrology. Top open-access water resources titles include Water and Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.
Once you’ve picked your summary topic, you will need to think of search terms to use for locating articles and other publications. Use UC Library Search listed under Background below (for books, DVDs and more) and use the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Each library subject database also has subject lists/thesauri that can help you precisely search your topic, e.g CAB Abstracts has a thesaurus which includes CABICODES; BIOSIS Previews has Concept Codes and more.
[Original content by Ruth Gustafson]
Before diving into your topic, locating some background information on the topic can be very helpful in refining your question. Try these book and reference resources to better develop your personal knowledge on a topic.
See the books/ebooks section for suggestions of terms for UC Davis Library Catalog searching.
After doing some background research, dive into your topic with these core databases (see databases section for a wider selection of databases).