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Fish & Wildlife/Forest Management: Finding Journal Articles

Article Databases

Google Scholar

Need Material from Other Libraries?

Scholarly versus popular

Finding Government Reports

Use Google Advanced search techniques to find government reports online.  To begin, look for the settings button (bottom right corner) or google Advanced Search.

Limit your results to pdf format (reports are often published as pdfs) by adding filetype:pdf to the search box.

Limit your results to a specific site by adding site: followed by a site or domain name to the search box. You can't limit to multiple site, this must be done one site at a time. Examples of sites where you can find relevant reports include:

.fs.fed.us - federal forestry service

.for.gov.bc.ca - BC ministry of forests

.dfo-mpo.gc.ca - fisheries and oceans

.env.gov.bc.ca - ministry of environment

.fpb.gov.bc.ca - forest practices board, BC

.fish.bc.ca - Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council

.psc.org - Pacific Salmon Commission

.nal.usda.gov - national agriculture library (U.S.)

Example: to find reports on trout in the Fishery and Oceans library, you could enter the following terms in the Google search box:

trout filetype:pdf site:.dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Tips for Searching Online Databases

Search more than one database to improve your chances.

When you are searching with multiple keywords or search terms:

  • "and" means both terms must show up in your results = fewer results
  • "or" means either term must show up in your results = more results
  • "not" means that therm must not show up in your results = fewer results

Consider limiting your search by:

  • full-text only
  • date
  • peer reviewed or scholarly publications

Check for a Cited References link to find related articles.

Within EBSCOhost web you can use the Cite button to get a properly formatted citation for an article.