LibGuides: Biochemistry: Journal Articles

Journal Article Databases

Search these databases to find journal articles.

SciFinder This link opens in a new window
Scifinder is a database specialized in chemistry, chemical engineering, biochemistry, medicine, materials sciences, pharmaceutical sciences and related disciplines. Search for chemical substances and properties, spectra, reactions, and literature collected by the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service since the early 1800’s. To access SciFinder you must register for an individual account using your YorkU e-mail address.
Visit the SciFinder Training Site for help using SciFinder.
See YouTube videos
More information about SciFinder.

Reaxys
Contains journal articles from the organic, inorganic, and organometallic chemical literature. Reaxys is best suited to finding information on chemical substances and reactions but may be used to keyword search for journal articles as well. Maintained by Elsevier. Reaxys help is available on the website.
Web of Science
Contains a broad selection of journal articles from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities going back over 100 yeras. Useful for citation chaining as lists of citing and cited articles are highly interconnected. Maintained by Clarivate Analytics. Coverage information is available at the Clarivate website. Visit the Web of Science Training Website for help.
Scopus
Contains journal articles from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Useful for citation chaining as lists of citing and cited articles are highly interconnected. Maintained by Elsevier. Coverage information is available at the Elsevier website. Visit the Scopus Training Website for help.
PubMed
Contains journal articles from the biomedical sciences. Provided free of charge online by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Coverage information is available at the NIH website. Coverage overlaps significantly with MEDLINE; see the NLM Fact Sheet What's the Difference Between MEDLINE and PubMed for more details. Visit the PubMed Tutorial Page for help.
MEDLINE
Contains journal articles from the biomedical sciences. Maintained by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and provded through an Ovid interface. Coverage overlaps significantly with PubMed; see the NLM Fact Sheet What's the Difference Between MEDLINE and PubMed for more details. Visit the OvidSP Online Training website for help.
Google Scholar
More a search engine than a database, Google Scholar searches the scholarly literature broadly. Use Google Scholar to quickly find known journal articles, view citing articles (useful for citation chaining), and locate free full text copies of journal articles. Make sure that your Google Scholar is connected to York University Libraries by clicking on Settings > Library Links and searching for York University. Visit the Google Scholar Search Tips site for help.

Types of Scientific Journal Articles

Primary research article: a report on an original experiment performed by a researcher or researchers. It usually has sections similar to those found in a lab report, such as methods, results, and discussion.

Review article: a report on all of the research that’s been done on a particular problem or topic. Review articles are a great place to start your search.

About

Journal articles, AKA:

scholarly articles
academic articles
peer-reviewed articles

are reports written by expert researchers. Journal articles appear in scholarly journals, which are published regularly. Examples of scientific journals include Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the Biochemical Journal.

This section of the Chemistry Research Guide is focused on finding journal articles using keyword searches. Articles in chemistry may also be found by searching for a substance or reaction. Please visit the Advanced Research section of this guide for help with substance and reaction searching.

Getting the Full Text

Here are four ways to get the full text of a journal article:

Search for the article in Omni and click on the full text link in the record.
Search for the article in a journal database and click on the "Check Omni for Full Text" link.
Search for the article in Google Scholar to see if there is a free copy online or use this Google Scholar link to check library subscriptions.
Use RACER (interlibrary loan) to request an electronic copy of the article be e-mailed to you.

Reading Journal Articles

Check out this video from Western Libraries on how to read a journal article.