[Dickinson College] LIBRARY

Biology Subject Guide

If you already have a journal citation, use one of the following methods to locate your journal:

1st step: Locate electronic and print holdings.

Search by subject or by journal title in our Journal Locator .

If it is available in print, click the journal title to get to its catalog record.

Check the summary holdings information to see if the most recent years are located in the Dana reading room.

2nd step: Request the journal through ILLIAD (Interlibrary Loan).

Do this only if the journal can not be located in either of these first two places.

(if you do not have a journal citation, but instead have a topic, use one of our databases to locate citations).

Why use journals?

Journals are often peer-reviewed/scholarly. This means the research in the articles have been double-checked for validity.
Primary research often appears in journal articles. Primary research is the first article or report on a topic whereas secondary research are the articles or reports that talk about that primary article. Always look back to the primary article when using secondary sources as support.
Journals can contain the most recent information on a topic. In the sciences this can be very important.