Brief 1

Omega-3 fatty acids

Books
Use the Uni of Adelaide Library Catalogue to find books on this topic. If you find the books you want are on loan, you can make a request to recall the book, but even better would be to tell your lecturer who will then contact me to have the book placed in the Reserve Collection.

Journal Articles
I'm assuming that you have read the Library tutorial for science, and have a basic understanding of how to use electronic databases to find journal articles (covered in section 5 of the tutorial). If you haven't looked at this tutorial start your search for information by working through this now.

Before you use a database you should think about what you will search.
What are the main concepts in this question?
Write them down.

First you probably need to find out the names of omega-3 fatty acids
Here is a link to the Medical Subject Headings of the PubMed database that defines Omega-3 fatty acids

Now scroll down the screen to look at the terms listed as Entry Terms. Here are a list of synonyms and alternative terms for omega-3 fatty acids. Ignore the ones with commas. Ignore the hyphens. Write down the others in a column under omega 3 fatty acids

omega 3 fatty acids

n 3 fatty acids

n 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid

Scroll down the screen further and see the more specific omega-3 fatty acids
Click on the first of these.

Scroll down to the Entry Terms

You can add the Entry Terms linolenic acid and linolenate to the column of search terms.
These two terms cover all the other terms.

Click on Back and then on the second of the more specific omega-3 fatty acids

Again scroll down the screen and add any Entry Terms to your column.
Continue for eicosapentaenoic acid.

Now the column of terms that are omega 3 fatty acids will look something like this.

omega 3 fatty acid*

n 3 fatty acid*

n 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid*

linolenic acid *

linolenate

docosahexaenoic acid*

neuroprostane*

docosahexaenoate*

eicosapentaenoic acid

icosapentaenoic acid

Notice that I've used the truncation symbol *
See the Library Tutorial if you need to revise what this means.

Now you need to work out whether the canola genome includes a way of producing n-3 fatty acids. To do this you can look for articles on the presence of n-3 fatty acids in canola. If the canola genome can produce n-3 fatty acids, then you need to ask if there's an indication of whether canola can produce enough fatty acids to make it useful for commercial production. If yes, then have there been efforts to use breeding techniques to increase the yield, and are they working. Have genes in other organisms been identified to allow transgenic commercialisation of n-3 fatty acids in canola or other crops.

Do you have to know whether the ratio of the different fatty acids in canola is important?

Now consider the terms that are used for canola.
Add these to a second column.

"omega 3 fatty acid*"	canola
"n 3 fatty acid*"	"brassica napus"
"n 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid*"	"rape seed"
"linolenic acid *"	rapeseed
linolenate
"docosahexaenoic acid*"
"neuroprostane*"
"docosahexaenoate*"
"eicosapentaenoic acid"
"icosapentaenoic acid "

The databases that are most likely to help you find articles require phrases to be enclosed in double quotes.
Now we have the language of the search right we need to make sure the logic is correct.
Using the grid helps with this because we can join the terms that are in the same column using OR logic.

We will combine the terms in the separate columns using AND logic.

The search becomes

"omega 3 fatty acid*" or "n 3 fatty acid*" or "n 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid*" or "linolenic acid*" or linolenate or "docosahexaenoic acid*" or neuroprostane* or docosahexaenoate* or "eicosapentaenoic acid" or "icosapentaenoic acid"

AND

canola or "brassica napus" or "rape seed" or rapeseed

Begin your searching with Biosis Previews

You can get access to Biosis Previews by clicking on the Databases tab on the Library Home.

Next click on the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology link.

Scroll down the list of databases in alphabetical order to find Biosis Previews.
Click on the link.

Enter the search terms from the first column into the top search for box.
Make sure that Topic is showing in the 'in' box.

Now put the terms from the second column into the middle search for box and change the in box from Author to Topic.

Click on the Search button.

Scroll through the citations and click on Check fulltext options to see if the Library has the article.

If you'd like to read the abstract of an article before checking whether it's held by the Library then click on the title of the article.

You can scroll through all the citations but because this search finds more than 370 citations you might want to make it more specific.
You can add further terms that would focus on the genetic makeup of canola.
e.g.

transgen* or "genetic* modif*" or "genetic* engineer*"

Can you think of other appropriate terms?
Add the terms to the Refine Results side bar back at the top of the first search results screen.

This will reduce the number of citations you have to look through, but it might also mean that you'll miss important articles.

Another way to refine your search might be to add

"plant breeding" or "genetic* divers*" or "molecular mark*"

When you view the full record of a citation (by clicking on the title) you can also see other articles that cite it.

Other Databases

You could run the same search in
CAB abstracts

Click on Select a Database

Then click on CAB Abstracts.

If you need more help contact Mick Draper, but be warned that I will ask you if you have read the Library tutorial for Science, and what you have done to search for articles.