Essay 3 Help

How and why do the digestive systems of herbivores and carnivores differ?

Prepared by Mick Draper August 2008

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.

herbivores

carnivores

digestive systems

differences

Under each of these concepts write down any synonyms or alternative terms for each concept

herbivores	carnivores	digestive system	differences
herbivore	carnivore	gut	comparative anatomy
herbivorous	carnivorous	guts	comparative morphology
	flesh eating	gastrointestinal
		alimentary

Are there other terms you could add to this grid?
You might like to add physiology to the last column.

This should sort out most of the language requirements of your search.
Now you need to make sure that your search logic is correct.
The logic will sometimes be determined by the database you choose to search.

A good general database for ecology and evolution is Biosis Previews (mentioned in the Library tutorial for science)
The logic suggestions below are suitable for Biosis Previews.

Logic
Join the terms that are in the same column of your logic grid with OR logic.
This means that your search will find for example, citations that include
digestive system or gut or guts or gastrointestinal or alimentary.

Truncation
You can save yourself a bit of typing by using the truncation symbol *
Instead of searching for herbivore or herbivores or herbivorous you can use
herbivor*
to get the same result.

Searching for Phrases
Searching for phrases will make your searches more specific.
Phrases need to be enclosed in double quotes
e.g. searching for "comparative anatomy" finds the phrase, while searching comparative anatomy will find citations that have both comparative and anatomy included but not necessarily as a phrase.

You logic grid should look something like the one below.

herbivor*	carnivor*	"digestive system*"	difference*
		gut	"comparative anatom*"
		guts	"comparative morpholog*"
		gastrointestinal
		alimentary

Turning the Grid Into a Search
If there is more than one term in a column use OR logic to combine the terms

"digestive system*" or gut or guts or gastrointestinal or alimentary

Enclose terms joined by OR in round brackets.

( "digestive system*" or gut or guts or gastrointestinal or alimentary)

Use AND logic to join the searches from the different columns

Your search becomes
herbivor* and carnivor* and ("digestive system*" or gut or guts or gastrointestinal or alimentary) and (difference* or "comparative anatom*" or "comparative morpholog*")

It is this that you will enter in 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 your search into the top search for box.
Make sure that Topic is showing in the 'in' box.
Click on the Search button.

Your results will appear in brief format.

You can get more detail on a particular citation by clicking on the article title.

You can also find which articles cite this one.

You can see the articles cited by the article you have found by scrolling down the screen and looking for References in the blue side bar on the right.

 

Click on Check fulltext options to find out if the library has the article.

Other Databases

You could run the same search in

Zoological Record
Current Contents Connect
GeoBase
Academic Search Premier

If you still can't find enough articles try removing difference* from the search and using (herbivor* or carnivor*)

(herbivor* or carnivor*) and ("digestive system*" or gut or guts or gastrointestinal or alimentary) and (difference* or "comparative anatom*" or "comparative morpholog*")

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.