College of DuPage Library

BIOLO 1110: Biodiversity

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Welcome! Click on a tab below to find books, articles, and websites for use in this course.

You'll need a College of DuPage Library card in order to use most of the resources below from off campus. If your card is not working, it may need to be reactivated.

Questions? Feel free to use my contact info to the right, stop by the Reference Desk, or contact us by email or chat

Image Credit: Craig ONeal, Pool of Spoonbills
  1. Pick a Topic
  2. Find Articles
  3. CSE Style

Finding (and Narrowing) a Topic

Your groups can start here to find a good biodiversity topic:

  • Conservation Magazine's List of Biodiversity Topics
  • Issues and Controversies has pro- and con- articles about biodiversity as well (including Wildlife Relocation and Big Game Hunting). You'll want to narrow to pro/con articles.
  • You can also try googling "Extinction controversy" "animal endangerment controversy" or similar topics, just to see what kinds of results might spark interest.
Picked your topic?

Start to gather some more context using the Gale Virtual Reference Library and books from the catalog.

Finding Articles in Databases

Now that you've selected your topic and gotten some background information, you can find more information about your topic in a variety of places.

National Newspaper Core has newspapers articles from around the country. See if there are any feature-length articles on your topic.

Academic Search Complete has a mixture of popular and scholarly articles on a variety of subjects. You'll want to be sure that you're using a source appropriate for class when searching.

Academic OneFile is a great place to find a mixture of scientific and popular articles as well. Just like in Academic Search premier, make sure that you're using a good source for this project while searching.

Finding Articles in Full-Text

Find an article that you'd like to read but don't know how to find the full-text?

Enter the Journal Title (not the article title) into the Journal Locator.
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Look at the list of results that will tell you if the journal is in our databases, and if so, for what years. If the article you want is available, great! Click the link and search by article title. In the example, we have access to the title in a range of spaces, including print in the library.

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If you don't have access to the title, head to the Interlibrary Loan request forms. Copy and paste info about your article into the form and then fill out your contact information. Usually you will get an email with a link to the article in about 5 days.

Confused? Check out this video that shows you how to check to see if an article is in our databases.

Using CSE Style

First of all, we have a copy of Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers in the library. You'll want to head to the downstairs reference desk (2nd floor, SRC, to request a copy).

There are also many websites which will help you to format your citations in CSE style. Here are some of the best:

Further questions? Contact me using the information at the right of the screen.