When hunting for references using the on-line search engines and research databases, you will want to maximize your return and work in the most efficient way possible.  Remember, there is an infinite amount of “known” out there, so being organized about the search is key to successful reference hunting.

1.  Get your Cisco VPN software on to your computer that you use at home.  Get it here:  http://www.kent.edu/library/services/offcampus.cfm

2.  With VPN turned on, go to www.scholar.google.com  and use keywords to find some journal articles.  On the right side of the screen you will see links provided by KSU to get to those articles.  You can limit the time range of the search by using the pull down menu on the search window, and setting the years to a particular range (e.g., 2012 to 2015).

3.  have you tried the Electronic Journal Center (EJC) yet?

a) Go to http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/  (if off campus, turn on your Cisco VPN software.
b) Click on Earth Sciences
c) Click on Geology
d) pick a journal.  For a general search, it won't matter which journal you start with, because you will be searching all journals in the EJC.  Put your search words in the search window, select “abstract” as a place to find those search words, and then, either click on “search in all journals” or in the one journal you specified.  I recommend searching in all journals for widest coverage.
e) When your results appear, you can click on the whole paper, which will appear on your screen, or you can click on just the abstract, and see if it is of interest to you.

4.  Have you Tried Getting to the Research Database(s) you want?

1.  Research databases commonly used:  In this class, you will find much of your material on one of four major databases:
Georef :  Provides historical and current information in geology and related areas.  (Covers publications from 1785 - present)  Updated monthly.

Applied Science and Technology Abstracts:  Provides citations to articles in more than 400 engineering, science, and technology journals and industry publications.
                    Updated monthly. (October 1983 - present)

Biological Abstracts:  An international database covering the life science disciplines, indexing nearly 7,000 journals.  Updated monthly. (1980 - present)

JSTOR:  An enormous database containing older journals-when you want a classic paper, its probably here.

They all work in the same general way.  To get to them:
1. go to the university library web page at http://www.kent.edu/library.
2.  Find  research databases, which shows up in white letters in the blue box, right of center.
3. Click on alphabetical for an  alphabetized list of databases, and select Biological Abstracts, or Georef, or Applied Science & Technology.

Example:
Let’s start with Georef.
Suppose you were interested in finding out about the warm global temperatures during the Cretaceous-what caused them, what effect did they have on species extinctions, and what kind of feedback was in place to maintain an ice-free world.  You could type the keywords Cretaceous and  climate in subject areas, set the selection on “all fields”, and search.

Results:  You will find 66 articles, some as abstracts, some in journals, usually ranked in order of latest publication to oldest publication.

Go for the journal articles-abstracts are just a paragraph long and don’t tell you much.

Click on a journal article, and you will see the full citation.  On the upper left side of the screen you will see "Find It".  If you click on that, you will either go to the on-line version of the article (great!) or to the information on where the journal is housed.

Emailing citations to yourself:  You can mark with a click in "store this record" (located to the left of the citation) the citations of interest as you do your search, and save the citations temporarily.  Then, when you have finished your search, you can email them to your own account for later study.  To do this, click on "stored records" at the top of the page.  If you email them to yourself, be sure to put an identifying title in so you know what it is when it arrives, and to click on citation and abstract, not simply citation.  That will be very useful.

 Using RefWorks:  You can store your reference citations easily in on-line folders for each paper you are writing, and then access them from any computer that has web access.  To do this, you need to sign on, get a password, and take the little tutorial-to do all these things, go to About RefWorks.

Where are the journals?  At KSU, many journals are available on line, but hard copy journals are on the 6th floor of the library, including the unbound, incoming new journal issues.  The bound journals are in alphabetical order by journal title on floor 6, and a guide with a floor map to the journals is here-just click on the guide for floor 6 .

Searching for references from off campus:  You can access the EJC and the reference databases from home.  Download the VPN Cisco Client software from the KSU library site here.  Using your VPN sign-in, you can sit at your computer at home or off campus and access the databases. You will be able to work for 2 hours minimum without interruption.  Very handy!