Subject Research Guide
Agricultural & Extension Education

Find Articles | Find Books | Encyclopedias | Internet Sites | Citing Your Sources

Agricultural and Extension Education at Penn State is a multifaceted department that conducts research in a wide variety of subjects. Areas of research include children, youth and family, civic and community engagement; consumer and financial issues; volunteerism; leadership development; and service learning at local, state, national and international levels.

Contact

Kathy Fescemyer
Life Sciences Librarian
phone: 814-865-3703

Top Resources

Books: The Cat
Journal Articles:
CAB Abstracts
ERIC
Encyclopedia: Gale Virtual Reference Library

Related Guides

Agriculture
Entomology
Plant Pathology
Turfgrass
Mycology

Find Articles

To find research articles on agriculatural and extension education topics use the following databases to find citations, which are also known as references.

Databases To Use:

• CAB ABSTRACTS contains agricultural and biological references from over 8500 journals from around the world. CAB consists of two sections, CAB Abstracts .
• ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) from the U.S. Department of Education provides access to educational resources from infants to senior citizens. Coverage is from 1966 to the present and over a million resources are indexed.
• Education Abstracts Full Text contains abstracting and indexing coverage for over 475 periodicals included in Education Index as well as the full text of over 150 periodicals.
• AGRICOLA Articles provides citations for all aspects of agriculture including horticultural. This database is produced by the National Agricultural Library of the USDA.
• Dissertation & Theses includes dissertations from most U.S. institutions.
• Web of Science searches research journals in several ways. Create searches for new articles using citations of older articles by using "cited ref" search mode.
• Professional Development Collection provides collection of electronic information designed especially for professional educators. This collection provides indexing for nearly 520 high quality education journals, including nearly 350 peer-reviewed titles and more than 200 educational reports.
• Sociological Abstracts indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

Don't forget: Try These First if you want general popular interest magazines and newspapers or pro and con debate information.

Article Search Tips: Finding the best articles on your topic requires a number of steps:

• Select a database from the list above.
• Enter and combine terms appropriate to your topic.
• Look at the best references you retrieve and determine the subject terms used for those articles. Then revise your search using these new terms.
• Print, email or download the citations.
• Explore other databases and subject terms (which vary between databases) for more information.

Get the full text: Once you find the citation, try the button to see if Penn State has the electronic or print version of the article you need. If the electronic version is available, it will appear as the first link on the Get it! menu. If the article is not available electronically, click on The CAT link to automatically search our catalog and see if Penn State has a print copy. If no other copy is available, you can use the ILLiad link to request it from another library.

Already have a citation? Use Citation Linker to see if Penn State has it online or in print!

Find Books

Use The CAT for finding books and other resources accessible to students, faculty and staff.

CAT Search Tips: Use Keyword to search topic, then check the subject headings from relevant books to find additional terms to search.Use Browse to look for a specific title or author (type last name first). Write down the call number and location for the resource or click on the online links. For more information, try the Quick Guide to the CAT.

Suggested CAT Search Terms:

Call Numbers: At University Park, the majority of resources for agricultural and extension education are located in the Life Sciences Library on the 4th floor of Paterno Library.

Soil Surveys for Pennsylvania and the fifty states are located in the Reference Area. Another set of Soil Surveys for Pennsylvania counties are located at the Reference Desk.

General call numbers and subject areas are:

• L– Education
• S– Agriculture

Books at Other Libraries: WorldCat

Libraries Borrowing Policies: Find your books, then bring them to be checked out at the nearest lending desk or express check-out station. Loan periods are usually four weeks for undergraduates, but books can be recalled for another user, so respond promptly to library notices. For more information see the University Libraries Lending Code.

Encyclopedias

Agropedia is a compilation of agriculture encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food, and Biological Engineering, Encyclopedia of Plant and Crop Science, Encyclopedia of Pest Management, Encyclopedia of Soil Science, Encyclopedia of Water Science.

Gale Virtual Reference Library provides encyclopedias in many subject areas. Use this source to find short articles, definitions and statistics on many subjects in education and sociology.

Internet Resources

The Internet has produced a tremendous bounty of sites that contain information for students in agricultural and extension education. This list provides links to just a few of the many and varied sites accessible to all. You may also start by using an Internet Search Engine like Google. Or if you are looking for scholarly journal articles use Google Scholar or CAB, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts or AGRICOLA.

Current Research Information System (CRIS) provides short reports of ongoing and recently completed research and education projects in agriculture, food and nutrition, and forestry. Projects are conducted or sponsored by USDA research agencies, state agricultural experiment stations, land-grant universities, other cooperating state institutions, and participants in CSREES-administered grant programs (USDA).

Penn State and USDA Resources

• Families and Children, 4-H and Youth, Resiliency, Intergenerational Program & Aging and Youth and Family Programs provides information to help children and families develop better relationships.
• Nutrition, Diet and Health and Food and Nutrition (USDA) provide resources on current and emerging issues pertaining to nutrition, diet, health, and food related issues.
• Community Development provides information to help rural communities thrive and prosper.
• AgrAbility provides information to farmers impacted by disabilities.

Other Internet Sites

• Administration for Children and Families (ACF) provides information on family support, child support, child care, Head Start, and other programs related to children and families.
• Administration on Aging (AoA) provides resources for seniors and caregivers.
• Child Trends provides current information in the area of childhood research.
• Distance Education Clearinghouse provides current news on distance education, distance education technologies, readings, and links to institutions.
• E-answers accesses publications from the Cooperative Extension Service and Agricultural Experiment Stations. Over 250,000 pages of full text information is indexed.
• National Agricultural Statistics Service has current and historical statistics on agricultural commodities and other farm related information.
• National Center for Educational Statistics is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the United States and other nations and includes statistics on post-secondary education and adult literacy education.
• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) provides a wide variety of information including health information for children and families.
• Trends in Agriculture provides articles about important events in U.S. agriculture over the past century. (USDA)
• The USDA Economics and Statistics System contains nearly 300 reports and datasets. These resources cover U.S. and international agriculture and related topics. (USDA)

Citing Your Sources

When using information from another source you must give credit to the original author or you are plagiarizing. You give credit by citing the source. Make sure your citation contains everything you would need to backtrack and find the information again. You might consult Council of Science Editors style.

Plagiarism, whether you copy a paragraph from a book or cut and paste someone else's words from an e-mail, is a violation of Penn State's academic integrity policy. See this Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty.