How to Access the Full Text of an Article
"Get it at UC" Button
Most databases provide a description of articles and other resources to help you find what you need by searching through the indexed literature within their website. Included as part of the item record is the “Get it at UC” button. Clicking this button will direct you to a copy of the full text of the article.
Interlibrary Loan Request
If we do not own a journal or book, you can submit an interlibrary loan (ILL) request to have the book or article (e)mailed to you for free from another UC library. Learn more about how to request books or articles.
Article Databases
UC Davis Experts/Faculty Research Profile Portals
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Aggie Experts The UC Davis Aggie Experts system provides a single point of discovery for research and scholarship expertise and professional information about UC Davis faculty and scholars.
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UC Davis ProfilesUC Davis Profiles is managed by the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Search for UC Davis Researchers by topic, researcher name, school, department, position and if active student projects are involved.
How to Choose a Database
In deciding which database(s) to use, it is helpful to note:
- Who: Who is authoring these publications? Are these scholarly, popular, or industry sources?
- What: What can I find in the database? (e.g. articles, conference proceedings, data)
- When: When does coverage begin? How well is historical literature covered? Does it include articles published in the last year?
- Where: What is the geographical scope of the coverage? Does that match your research interest?
Recommended Subject Databases:
Tracking a UCD faculty member down? In addition to searching by author name in the databases below, perhaps you are just looking generally for a UCD faculty expert, say who does evolutionary research with birds? In BIOSIS or Zoological Record, you should do a taxonomic search using the database thesaurus for taxonomic terms (e.g. you may need to use BIRDS or AVES …). Then you can cross this with either an ADDRESS or INSTITUTION field search specifying the researcher is from UCD. Best search in this type of field is by zip code, 95616 but ask your subject librarian for additional tips! Be aware that some of the UCD authors found might be post-doc researchers or graduate students — you can check their names against the UCD campus online directory to see if they are faculty and/or still at UC Davis.
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BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new windowBIOSIS Previews is a database for researching the biological sciences literature. Designed by biologists for keeping up with the literature across pure and applied life sciences including agriculture and medicine. Excellent features for searching by taxonomic categories and broad concept codes (subject categories). More than 27 million records in all life science areas, including agriculture, biochemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, ecology, environmental biology, genetics, microbiology, plant biology, veterinary medicine & pharmacology, and zoology. Indexes over 6,000 journals, serials, books and book chapters, conference proceedings and patents.
[Coverage: 1926-present] -
Zoological Record This link opens in a new windowPrimary database for wildlife researchers. The oldest continuing database of animal biology - designed to include all records of new species information and naming. Comprehensive coverage of zoology; including behavior, conservation and environmental science, ecology, evolution, genetics, habitat, marine and freshwater biology, nutrition, parasitology and disease, reproduction, taxonomy and systematics, veterinary studies, zoogeography and fossil records. Especially strong in new species reports and field studies.
[Coverage: 1864-Present] -
Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new windowCovers environmental science topics from disciplines such as atmospheric science, biology, biotechnology, ecology, engineering, and microbiology, agricultural research including agricultural economics, animal and veterinary sciences, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, food and human nutrition, forestry, and plant sciences. It includes Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and Digests and all the records from the National Agricultural Library's AGRICOLA database.
[Coverage: 1960-present] -
History of Science, Technology & Medicine This link opens in a new windowInternational Bibliography that includes citations to the literature of the history of science, technology, and medicine in many languages.
[Coverage: 1976-present] -
C19 : The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new windowThe principal index to nineteenth-century books, periodicals, official documents, newspapers and archives (primarily US and UK). The C19 Index incorporates the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, Poole's Index to Nineteenth Century Periodicals, Periodicals Index Online and more to provide coverage of over 1.5 million books and official publications, 71,000 archival collections and 16.3 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers.
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Early Encounters in North America (EENA): Peoples, Cultures and the Environment This link opens in a new windowFull text letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters, centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico. Includes information on the peoples, places, environment, flora and fauna encountered. Of note are more than 9,000 Audubon prints from The Birds of America as well as the complete contents of the three-volume The Quadrupeds of North America.
[Coverage: 1534-1959] -
CAB Abstracts (Ovid) This link opens in a new windowProvides citations and abstracts to the international agricultural literature, including veterinary medicine, human and animal nutrition, forestry, rural development, as well as other related topics such as tourism and human ecology. Covers over 11,000 journals and conference proceedings and selected books in agriculture. Produced by CAB (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux) International (CABI) with more than 10 million records. HISTORICAL SCOPE: Archive abstracts added in August 2005 go back to 1910 with 1,860,000 additional records. CAB DATABASE PDFs: As of January 2009, hard-to-find literature may be available as CAB Database PDFs (so noted below the UC-eLinks button). These CABI Full Text items give users automatic access to over 350,000 journal articles, conference papers and reports 80 percent of which are not available electronically anywhere else. NOTE: the default UCD Search Type is set to Advanced Ovid Search.
[Coverage: 1910-present] -
PubMed for UC Davis This link opens in a new windowPubMed for UC Davis offers users vastly more full-text articles than does the public version of Pubmed.gov. Search results in the UCD version display "Get it at UC" buttons providing (with on-campus or VPN connection) access to articles in journals licensed by UC Davis or enabling patrons to request articles that are not immediately available online. PubMed comprises over 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of biomedicine and health, covering portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering. PubMed also provides access to additional relevant web sites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources. PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
[Coverage: 1902-present]
Recommended Interdisciplinary Databases
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Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new windowWeb of Science Core Collection enables searching of top-cited peer-reviewed content across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities with "cited reference" search capabilities. "It is a curated collection of over 20,000 peer-reviewed, high-quality scholarly journals published worldwide (including Open Access journals) in over 250 science, social sciences, and humanities disciplines. Conference proceedings and book data are also available." There is also access to Journal Citation Reports which provide impact metrics like the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Scoring. Web of Science also has article, author and institutional citation indices. Includes EndNote Basic online citation management tool.
[Coverage: 1900-present] -
Scopus This link opens in a new windowLarge interdisciplinary abstract and citation database to academic journal literature, conference proceedings and books with broad coverage across the sciences and social sciences, includes citation tracking tools (Citescore).
[Coverage: full coverage from 1996-present, with selected coverage as far back as 1823]
Identify Peer-Reviewed Articles
A peer-reviewed source is an article that has been reviewed by several other experts in the field before being published in order to ensure its quality. This 2 minute video describes the peer review process.
How do I Know if an Article is Peer-Reviewed?
Look for limits/filters
Many databases allow you to specify that you want to search only in “peer-reviewed” or “refereed” sources.
Visit the journal’s webpage
Search online for your journal’s title. Sections like “about this journal” or “editorial policies” generally mention whether the journal is peer-reviewed/refereed.
Check a directory
Use the Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory to find key information about a journal, including whether it has a peer-review process.