If you need some background information about scientific terms you might encounter in your research, here are a few resources.

To do a "precision" search in google, search on google advanced search. This brings up the Google Advanced Search.

Wikipedia can be a valuable source of background information and stepping stone to discovering academic resources. *Often wikipedia has useful links listed at the bottom of an article.*

You will of course have to confirm independently information you find in Wikipedia.

Here is a detailed guide about Wikipedia.

For information about the reliability of Wikipedia, see this Wikipedia article.

Popular publications can do these things for you:

• provide general background information before you turn to the academic journal literature;
• help identify late breaking news about important scientific discoveries or developments;
• point you to academic studies; for example, a newspaper or magazine or other popular publication may give a journalistic account of a scientific research project, mention its principal researchers, and mention the academic journal in which the research was published.

You will have to assess the accuracy of the journalistic or popular accounts by turning to the research as published in an academic venue such as a scholarly journal.

To find publications that are at a more popular level than academic journal articles, try the following resources.

Go to Research Library, put in your search terms, then scroll down, and select source types that are not academic journal articles, then run search. (This database also has scholarly articles.)

Search Google and look for a Google "News" link about your topic.

Check out NexisUni. Also, America's Newspapers.

Other places to check; make sure to limit your searches to the last few years.

•     Eos
•     Earth magazine (American Geosciences Institute)
•     Chemistry World
•     Discover Magazine: "The newsmagazine of science".
•     New Scientist.
•     Science (see news)
•     Science News
•     Scientific American
•     The Scientist
•     Chemical and Engineering News

You can look these up by doing a journals search in ASA, Lehigh's online catalog on the library homeppage, or on google (with VPN on if you are off-campus).