Guides: Environment & Sustainability: Find Sources

Forming your Search String

The more complicated your question, the less likely a search engine can understand it. To get the best result, identify keywords and like terms to create a search string.

Example research question: What is the impact of biofuel production on indigenous communities in North America?

Keywords: biofuel production, indigenous communities, North America

Like terms can include synonyms and also examples of your keywords. If you don't get results from searching your keywords, it doesn't mean that the research doesn't exist. It could mean that the researcher used different language to describe the same topic

Biofuel production: Biogas, Renewable Diesel, Bioenergy
Indigenous communities: Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Dine
North America: Mexico, United States, Canada

Search strings connect your keywords and like terms together for the best results.

Too many results? Use AND to narrow results

biofuel production AND indigenous communities AND North America

Too few results? Use OR to broaden results

biofuel production OR renewable diesel production AND indigenous communities OR First Nations AND North America OR Mexico OR United States OR Canada

students reading in front of periodical display

Also known as peer-reviewed articles, scholarly articles are sources that are:

written by experts in the field
reviewed by other experts in the field (hence the peer-reviewed)
intended for an academic audience

While you can find scholarly articles through general search engines, databases contain a feature where you can narrow your results to only scholarly articles.

Find Subject-Specific Articles:

BioOne Complete This link opens in a new window
Search and browse bioscience research journals published by small societies and other not-for-profit organizations. BioOne Complete is an initiative to provide access to journals focused on the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
OneFile: Environmental Studies and Policy This link opens in a new window
Search a subset of Gale Academic OneFile journals and Delmar reference titles covering environmental issues and policies, including diverse perspectives from the scientific community, governmental policy makers, as well as corporate interests.
Formerly called Environmental Studies and Policy Collection
HeinOnline Academic This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline Academic includes more than 100 million pages of multidisciplinary content in more than 100 subject areas, including history, political science, criminal justice, religious studies, international relations, women’s studies, pre-law, and many more.

Find Articles in Multidisciplinary Databases:

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Ultimate offers access to resources cited in key subject indexes. The combination of academic journals, magazines, periodicals, reports, books and videos meets the needs of scholars in virtually every discipline ranging from astronomy, anthropology, biomedicine, engineering, health, law and literacy to mathematics, pharmacology, women’s studies, zoology and more.
Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Provides millions of articles from over 17,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources—including thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR and CNN as well as videos from BBC Worldwide Learning. Includes extensive coverage in key subject areas such as biology, chemistry, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.

Student thumbing through a book in front of library stacks

Books and eBooks often provide a broader overview and cover more information than a scholarly journal article.

You don't need to read an entire book to use it in your research. Use the index at the back of a book to find the information you need.

To find books and eBooks, you can either:

Search the NOBLE catalog

NOBLE Catalog Search
Search the Jenks Library catalog for books, eBooks, audiobooks, scores, etc.

Browse the stacks for a book related to your topic

GE1‑350 Environmental sciences
GE70‑90 -Environmental education
GE170‑190 -Environmental policy
GE195‑199 -Environmentalism. Green movement
GE300‑350 -Environmental management

TD1-1066 Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering

Government & Data Sources

USDA National Agriculture Statistical Service
USDA National Agriculture Statistical Service provides access to data on agriculture.
NOAA: National Center for Environmental Information
Combines data information from NOAA's three data centers: the National Climatic Data Center, the National Geophysical Data Center, and the National Oceanographic Data Center.
NOAA Fisheries
Programs supporting the conservation and management of living marine resources.
EPA Science Inventory
The Science Inventory is a searchable database of research products primarily from EPA's Office of Research and Development.
NOAA Climate Data Online
Climate Data Online (CDO) provides free access to NCDC's archive of global historical weather and climate data in addition to station history information.
Forest Service Publications
A variety of publications from the USDA Forest Service. Topics include Fire and Incident Management, Business, Science and Technology and more.

If you find an article or book that you can't access, don't pay for it! Instead, submit an Interlibrary Loan request, and you'll receive articles within a few days!

Interlibrary Loan: Article & Book Request
Can't find the article or book you're looking for at Gordon? Fill out the Interlibrary Loan request form and we'll track the article or book down for you!

Are you looking for a specific article, like an article that you found referenced in a bibliography? Search for the journal in Journal Finder, linked below:

Browse Journal Finder
Find individual journals and search within specific publications.