Chemistry

In-text citations:

References in the text should be cited in one of three ways:

• by an italic number - e.g. "Chemistry is great! (2)"
• or by superscript number - e.g. "Chemistry is great! ²"
• or by author name and date - e.g. "Chemistry is great! (Curie, 2017)"

If using numbers, references should be numbered sequentially.  If a reference is used more than once in your text, it does not need a new number each time; use the original number assigned to it.  If citing more than one reference at a time, include reference numbers in increasing order separated by commas.

Bibliography:

If you used numbers for your in-text citations, arrange your bibliography in numerical order (so that in-text citation 1 is listed first, in-text citation 2 is listed second, etc). If you used author name and date for your in-text citations, arrange your bibliography in alphabetical order by author's last name. The ACS website, linked below, has excellent examples of citation formats for every source type (books, journal articles, websites, etc).

There are many databases to choose form, which will provide you access to a wide variety of research on many topics. To explore databases on a specific subject, check out our Databases A-Z List, linked above, and select your subject from the drop-down. You can also limit your database search by resource type (Data, Images, Videos, Maps, and more) which will help you find the best database for your research.

Tips for searching in databases:

• Most databases allow for searching with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT).
  • Use AND to focus your search and combine different aspects of your topic
  • Use OR to broaden your search and find sources that use different words for the same concept.
  • Use NOT to omit certain terms from your results.
• Use an asterisk (*) to truncate words if you want to search for all words with that root. For example, “environment*” would search for environment, environmental, environmentalism, etc.
• Put quotes around a phrase that you want the database to search as a phrase, rather than as individual words.
• Group synonyms inside parentheses using OR between each one

Example:

Below are just a few of our databases useful for chemistry research. For more databases with chemical sciences content, check out our Databases A-Z List, linked above, and select "Chemistry" from the drop-down.

Primary sources in the sciences are first-hand accounts of original research or projects, written by the researchers themselves.

Secondary sources in the sciences analyze, summarize, or discuss information from one or more primary sources.

For example, a journal article written by a group of researchers about their experiment would be a primary source. A newspaper or magazine article summarizing the journal article for a non-scientific audience would be a secondary source. A book or review article that summarizes the researchers' journal article plus many others about similar topics to draw broad conclusions would also be a secondary source.

Confusingly, primary and secondary sources are often found in the same databases, so you have to apply a little thoughtful analysis to the item you are looking at to determine if it is a primary or secondary source.

Examples of Primary Sources:

• Journal articles reporting on original research
• Conference papers
• Interviews
• Lab notebooks
• Patents
• Technical reports
• Theses and Dissertations

Examples of Secondary Sources:

• Books
• Review articles
• Textbooks
• Stories in popular media (newspapers, magazines, television) that summarize one or more research studies