Library Guides: Biomedical Science: Find Articles

Start your Research in Omni

Omni: Rediscover Discovery

Omni is the new academic search tool that locates your research material quickly and easily. Find Omni at the top of all our library webpages, or use the links below.

Search Omni
Link to the Omni search tool.
Omni Guide
A guide for using the Omni search tool.

Databases and Tutorials

Try these databases first to find scholarly articles in Biomedical Science. If you've never used them, check out their tutorials.

Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
- A multidisciplinary indexing database that indexes peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, and other scholarly content across a wide range of scientific and academic disciplines including the social sciences, and arts and humanities.
MEDLINE This link opens in a new window
- This indexing database contains citations for a broad range of medical topics relating to research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
- An index of biomedical and life sciences literature, primarily indexing content from the MEDLINE database. It includes citations and abstracts from scholarly journals, covering a wide range of topics in medicine, healthcare, biology, and related fields.

Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new window
- Contains peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers across various academic disciplines.
Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window
- Authoritative reviews, summaries, and critical analyses written by leading experts covering the latest in the fields of the biomedical, physical, and social sciences.
Arctic Science and Technology Information System (ASTIS) This link opens in a new window
- This publication index contains abstracts on research projects pertaining to Northern Canada's environmental, social, and economic conditions. There is access to some full text articles, conference proceedings, and other publications related to Canada's Arctic region.
Bioline International This link opens in a new window
- This electronic publishing service provides access to quality research journals, particularly from developing countries, covering a wide range of disciplines including tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, biodiversity, the environment, and international development.
BioOne Digital Library This link opens in a new window
- Dedicated to serving the research community in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. It provides access to a vast collection of scholarly journals, research articles, and books from a wide range of publishers and societies in the life sciences field.
Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) This link opens in a new window
- Offers access to journals, books, dissertations, conference proceedings, and standards of practice on topics including nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative and complementary medicine, and consumer health.
CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
- Gale OneFile Canadian Periodical Index provides access to a wide range of Canadian magazines, journals, and newspapers covering diverse topics such as current events, culture, business, health, and more.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
- Freely accessible search engine that indexes scholarly articles, theses, books, conference papers, and patents across various disciplines.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- Access to a vast collection of scholarly journals, books, and primary sources across various disciplines.
Scholars Portal Journals This link opens in a new window
- An index of academic journals across various disciplines. It provides metadata and links to full-text articles, facilitating efficient searches for scholarly content.

Protocol Exchange (Nature Protocols)
"The Protocol Exchange is an Open Repository for the deposition and sharing of protocols for scientific research. These protocols are posted directly on the Protocol Exchange by their authors and hence have not been further styled, peer reviewed or copy edited. Rather they are made freely available to the scientific community for use and comment."

Medline

Medline on Ovid - Introduction

PubMED

Web of Science

Biomedical Science Journals

Below is a list of some of the most important journals in Biomedical Sciences.

**Trent does not subscribe to this journal. The link provided is to the journal homepage where citations, abstracts and sometimes whole articles can be read. Articles can be ordered through the library's interlibrary loan service.

Library Skills Tutorials

Tutorial: Keyword Searching
A short tutorial providing background on how keyword searching works, with tips to improve your search results. Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.
Finding Articles
Reading Scholarly Articles
It can be overwhelming when you're first faced with reading scholarly articles. This tutorial helps explain what they are and how to read them.
Recognizing Scholarly Resources: JABsa
A tutorial on how to avoid using "popular" articles and know when you've found scholarly ones.
Using Google Scholar

Troubleshooting Searches

Too few articles:

Check for typos and spelling. Consider using both American and British spellings (eg. behaviour or behavior).
Remove long phrases.
Make sure you're using a database that is likely to include information on your topic.
Try using other synonyms and alternate words joined by the Boolean Operator 'OR' (e.g. aboriginal or indigenous or First Nations).
Check your Boolean logic. Are you using 'AND' between synonyms/alternate words when you should be using 'OR'?
If you have found at least one good article, look at the references of this article to find other related articles OR use the 'Find citing' or 'Find related' buttons when available in the databases.
Perhaps your topic is too narrow. You may need to broaden it.

Too many articles:

Perhaps your topic is too broad. Add another concept to your searching using the Boolean operator 'AND'.
Add Limits (e.g. Peer Reviewed, Date of Publication, Language, Publication Type, etc.).
Check your Boolean logic. Are you using 'OR' between the main concepts when you should be using 'AND'?
When Keyword searching, try searching just in the Title field. This is not recommended for all searches, as you will eliminate relevant articles that don't have those keywords in the title, but it will likely find a few articles to get you started.
Try searching with Subject Headings. Databases including PsycINFO, Medline and CINAHL all have a well established thesaurus of controlled vocabulary. In Medline or PubMed this controlled vocabulary is known as MeSH. The controlled vocabulary is a specific list of Terms used to describe an item. The terms are controlled by the publisher and applied consistently by scholarly staff who determine which terms should be applied. This is significant because we can be confident that the same terminology is applied in the same way to each article, linking relevant items. (Most databases rely on authors to provide subject terms, causing inconsistency in how they're applied.)
If you're searching in a database that covers all subjects (e.g. Academic Search Elite, Web of Knowledge), look for a database that is subject specific (e.g. PsycINFO, Medline, PubMed, CINAHL).

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary loan is a system that allows you to request material from other libraries to be sent to Trent for you to borrow. Normally, there are no costs to use the ILL service. Plan ahead because it can take a few days or even weeks for material to be sent, depending upon availability.

Visit the Interlibrary Loan page for more information.