Good Sources of Information for Term Papers

Search Engines

The best way to find journal articles about a particular topic is to use one of the search engines available at the HBLL Library or online through the HBLL library web page (http://library.byu.edu/).  The Physics and Astronomy subject page is located at http://hbllmedia.lib.byu.edu/subs/subject.pl?s_id=60.

The search engine that I use most is "Scitation," located at http://scitation.aip.org/vsearch/servlet/VerityServlet?KEY=ALL.

Another good one is "Web of Science," located at http://isi4.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi?DestApp=WOS&Func=Frame

You can also use one of the web search engines like Google, but they will typically take you to un-reviewed sources which may provide good introductory material but which should not be trusted to be up-to-date or reliable.

If you wish to browse through physics journals to get ideas for a topic, I would recommend the following journals.  Most of the journals listed below are accessible online (in most cases you must access them from a BYU computer or go through the BYU Library web page to gain access).  You can also find them in print in the HBLL library.

Some of the best sources on the historical development of modern physics include the references in your text and various historical books that can be found in the library.

The journals below are good sources of review articles which contain broader discussions of various topics in modern physics.

The journals below are good sources of the latest breaking research.

© Dallin S. Durfee 2004