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FIG - Planetary Atmospheres

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This page should help you with your library research assignment. Feel free to contact me with questions. You may also want to try the UO Libraries LibX Toolbar for your browser!


Chat with Victoria!


Annie
Librarian for: Chemistry, Geological Sciences, and Physics

ph: 346-3076 vmitch@uoregon.edu

Find an article here:

 

The above search box is searching the following specific databases, that you might want to try individually:

Academic Search Premier

  • Good for its mix of popular, news and scholarly articles. You have to exercise your critical evaluation skills to help determine what's what. (Do NOT rely solely on their limit to peer-reviewed feature--it is not reliable.)
GeoBase
  • An earth sciences database that includes a lot of climatology and atmospheric science (including for planets other than Earth.)

Web of Science

  • Interdisciplinary science database, a heavily-used source for science literature. Highly recommended.
See also:

Google Scholar

  • Google for academics.

Find a book

in the UO Library Online Catalog
A few book search tips:
  • Use less specific terms than when searching for articles. E.g., if you want books that will tell you about Saturn's atmosphere, just look for books on Saturn.
  • You'll probably get better results if you do a Subject Heading search for a broad term. E.g., search subject: Saturn, and you'll find many entries, but "Saturn Planet", is what you want (not the automobile, deity, etc.)

Breaking atmospheric science news

 
 
 
 

Breaking space and planetary science news


Tutorials

 
 

How to read a scientific journal article

 
 
 

Evaluating Websites

Reference Sources


Print
(Located in the Science Library)


Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences.(6 vols.) SCI REF QC854 .E522 2003

Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. SCI REF QB600.2 .E53 1997

The Solar System (3 vols.) SCI REF QB501 .S625 1998


Online
(You must be on campus, or an authorized UO user if off campus, to access)

Encyclopedia of Global Change 

  • If you're doing Earth's atmosphere

Encyclopedia of Hydrological Sciences

  • Again, mainly the Earth; hydrologic cycles include the atmosphere.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

  • You can search the whole collection, or see particularly: Chemistry: Foundations & Applications, Environmental Encyclopedia, or Water: Science & Issues.

Oxford Reference Premium

  • Contains many dictionaries, scientific and otherwise.
Compare the above reference sources with:
Wikipedia
  • Do the articles have identified authors? Are the authors' credentials and affiliations available? Do the articles have references or bibliographies? If so, are there differences in the kinds of references given?
  • Wikipedia is a very handy, free Internet source, but it is not necessarily reliable. For a humorous demonstration of this phenomenon, watch this excerpt of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. (Some improvements have been made to Wikipedia since this was aired.)

Evaluating Sources


This web page contains a wealth of information on evaluating information sources both in print and on the Web: Critical Evaluation of Information Sources

To determine whether a particular periodical (magazine, journal) is scholarly (peer-reviewed, refereed) or popular, see these pages:

What is "peer-review"?

Here are a couple of pdfs that provide good explanations of what it is (and is not), and why it's particularly important in the sciences:
(NB: both of the above are produced in the UK, so there are a few Britishisms that may not make sense)

Maintained by: Victoria Mitchell, vmitch@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 09/29/2009