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Life Sciences Library
You need to use peer reviewed scholarly articles for this assignment. These are articles written by researchers that report on actual experiments that have been conducted. You may also use review articles that summarize the research from many experiments, all of which will be listed in the references section at the end of the article.
What does a Scientific Scholarly Article Look Like?
Title: a clear and succinct expression of the article's topic.
Authors: all of the authors should be listed, with their institutional affiliation. Scholarly articles are written by authors who have credentials and experience with the subject.
Abstract: summary of the article.
Introduction: background information and a description of the author’s purpose.
Materials & Methods: how the study was performed with enough detail so that other scientists could repeat the study.
Results: data and findings.
Note: IF the article is a "review" article (one that summarizes and synthesizes research on a specific subject) there will not be a "materials & methods" section or a "results" section, instead you will find a detailed analysis of other primary research articles.
Discussion and/or Conclusion: what the findings mean and their implications; potential criticisms; avenues of future research.
References: a list of all the works used or referred to in the paper.
Journal information: On the first page of an article you will usually find the journal title, volume/issue numbers, if applicable, and page numbers of the article. Online articles may just include the journal title and a "DOI" (digital object identifier) number.
Peer-review information: dates of submission, review, and acceptance.
Check this Anatomy of a Scholarly Article tutorial from NCSU for a great visual overview of what a scholarly article will look like.
These scholarly articles are concerned with research and academic topics. Unlike popular articles, which are designed for the general population, scholarly articles are designed for researchers. They are detailed original research reports which use language specific for that field (technical jargon). They describe how the researcher did the work; the results of the work; the key data (often in figures, tables, or charts); and should include a discussion of the results and conclusions about the work as well as a list of references cited in the article. Professional or trade articles are somewhat in-between. They are designed for individuals in a specific trade, profession or business. They focus on current topics in the field, professional issues, trends, standards, and new technologies.
Check out this chart for more details between these types of articles.
Check these databases for Animal Science articles
Article Search Tips
Finding the best articles on your topic requires a number of steps.
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 use the InterLibrary Loan link to request it from another library.
Citing Your Sources:
The objective in citing your sources is to lead the next person to the same information you found. Make sure your citation contains everything you would need to backtrack and find the information again.
Dr. Hagen requires the style used in the Journal of Animal Sciences found here (pdf).
Manage your personal research library
When working on extensive research projects, you will need to collect, organize and format all those citations!
The following tools are appropriate to use at Penn State. They all allow you to store and search for your references, as well as create in-text citations and bibliographies.
See also this comparison chart of these products.
