You might be wondering what a database is and why you shouldn't just use a search engine, like Google, to find articles. While search engines like Google Scholar can help find literature, scholarly databases are like hitting the peer-reviewed literature jackpot. A scholarly database is essentially a collection of high-quality literature written by experts that comes from scholarly sources, such as peer-reviewed journals, books, conference proceedings, and reports. Databases allow users to perform more detailed searches, yielding a higher number of relevant results.
These databases range from large, interdisciplinary citation databases to policy-specific databases to environmentally-focused databases. Some databases will provide full-text access links, while others you will need to search for through our website. You can also browse databases by subject, such as environmental sciences or earth & climate sciences.
Looking for tips on how to search a scholarly database? Check out the Search the Literature section of our literature reviews guide.
Master's Projects from recent years can be found online at DukeSpace. Older projects are held by the University Archives.
Check out this book! This one-stop-shop text guides students through their research project from the initial stages of choosing a suitable topic, of conducting the relevant experiments and interpreting the data, through to effective presentation of the results.
Student Projects in Environmental Science by 
When researching a recent topic, consider utilizing news sources for up-to-date information. News outlets are particularly useful when scholarly research on your topic is limited. However, exercise caution by critically evaluating bias and authority whenever consuming news.
