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FRIPS: Freshmen Research in Plant Sciences

Photo of leaf veins

The Basics

Choose the right tool for the job

  • What kind of information do you need? Background information or primary research?

Know Thy Resource

  • What's included? What's not? How does it search?

Think before you search

  • Break topics into concepts
  • Think about your keywords, synonyms, alternate spellings

Searching is an iterative process

  • There is no one perfect database (or one way to get to the information)
  • That's why they call it re-search...

Keep Track of What You're Doing

  • Take notes! Email yourself search results!
  • Have a MyNCBI account to save your PubMed searches
  • Consider using a citation manager like EndNote or Mendeley (coordinate with your mentor if you're writing manuscripts together!)
    • NOTE: DoIT has discontinued the EndNote license for students. Effective February 25, 2020, students can either register for the free web-based version of EndNote or purchase a personal copy from EndNote directly. Register for EndNote Basic or Purchase EndNote

Core Concept

ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

  • Authority is constructed and contextual
  • Information creation as a process
  • Information has value
  • Scholarship as conversation
  • Searching as strategic exploration