Essay 4

Is our current understanding of recent human evolution dependant largely or entirely on findings from DNA sequences?

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.

recent

human evolution

dna sequences

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

recent	human evolution	dna sequence
modern		dna sequences
holocene		genome
		genomes
		genomic

Are there other terms you could add to this grid?

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

recent or modern or holocene

Truncation
You can save yourself a bit of typing by using the truncation symbol *
Instead of searching for genomic or genomics or genome or genomes

use genom*

Searching for Phrases
Searching for phrases will make your searches more specific.
Phrases need to be enclosed in double quotes

"human evolution"

You logic grid should now look something like the one below.

recent	"human* evol*"	"dna sequenc*"
modern		genom*
holocene

 

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 terms from the first column into the top search for box.

Put the search terms from your second column into the second Search for box.
Make sure you change Author in the in box to Topic

Continue by putting the terms from your third column into the third Search for box and changing Publication Name to Topic.
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 other articles that 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.

If you think 97 citations is too many and you want to compare the contribution of palaeontology, taxonomy, anatomy, morphology, anthropology etc?
Add these terms or any others to the Refine Results search box.

palaeo* or paleo* or fossil* or taxon* or morpholog* or clad* or anatom* or anthropolog*

If you want to find articles on these older methods that don't include dna sequences then your search will look something like this.

Note that I've changed the search logic in the final box from AND to NOT.
This excludes citations that have either of the terms in the last Search for box.

 

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.