Science and Engineering Article Databases
Read the box to the right first.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowProvides citations covering over 10,000 high-impact journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities, as well as international proceedings coverage for over 120,000 conferences.
- Reaxys This link opens in a new windowFind data and full-text articles and patents on chemicals and chemical compounds, including properties, reactions, and structures.
- Engineering Village 2 This link opens in a new windowSimultaneously search across 3 large engineering databases, or select a single database to search. Includes articles, patents, conference proceedings, in all areas of engineering and applied sciences.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowLarge abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature in science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Includes bibliometrics tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
- SciFinder This link opens in a new windowArticles, patents, and white papers describing chemicals. Includes information on structures, reactions, compounds, drug development, and manufacturing. Requires separate login. Go to USC's create an account page to register.
Literature Searching
Literature is the backbone of scientific research and innovation. Journal articles, conference proceedings, and other written forms of communication are how scientists share their research with other scientists.
Being able to search, refine, and interpret literature are extremely important skills not only for chemistry, but all other science and engineering disciplines. This short tutorial will cover: topic searching, citations, cited reference search, and citation maps.
In the vast, interdisciplinary world of science, fields overlap, research crosses boundaries, and sometimes it is hard to tell what discipline someone's work may be coming from. Because of that, we heavily rely on large, multidiscipline databases to search for literature in science and engineering. Web of Science, a product of Web of Knowledge, indexes tens of thousands of different journals, conference proceedings, and disciplines from physical sciences to social sciences.
Instructions on how to use Web of Science are located on your part 1 assignment. Click the link in the left box to continue.
Elements of a Citation
*If there is an issue number, it is usually found after the volume number, but before the page number(s).
- CASSI (CAS Source Index) Search ToolThis online tool is useful for decoding journal title abbreviations.