PROQUEST

One requirement of the term paper is that you have scientific articles as part of your reference materials. Many good articles are available online, and I recommend using PROQUEST to search for articles related to your topic. PROQUEST is an online database for retrieval of full-text scientific articles that you can access through the MiraCosta College Library.

1. Go the MiraCosta College Library homepage: http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/library/

2. Click on the link called 'ProQuest from home' if you are accessing this from off-campus, or the link called 'ProQuest on campus' if you are on a campus networked computer.

3. Click on the "CONNECT TO PROQUEST" button near the center of the page.

4. You may be asked an account name and password if you are accessing ProQuest from off-campus. Use your Surf ID and Password. If you do not have either, go to this link:

Get your Surf ID and Password, click here.

5. Important: Here is a tip to save you some time. When the ProQuest page comes up, the first thing you should do is to click on the "Databases selected" link in the upper left corner. On the next page that comes up, UNCHECK the box next to "Proquest General Reference". Then scroll down and check the box next to "Sciences Module". This will limit your search to only scientific articles in the ProQuest database, so you don’t have to sort through a lot of articles from non-scientific sources. Now click the "Continue" button at the bottom of the page.

6. In the Search box, type in some subject words related to your topic. The more specific your subject words the better. Before you click "Search", check the box next to "limit results to full text articles only". Your search will list a number of articles. There are several options for downloading articles, including directly printing out the article or emailing it to you.