Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Search Term Connectors:

Use AND to find articles that contain both words you enter. AND narrows your search.

Use OR to find articles that contain either word you enter. OR broadens your search.

Use NOT to find articles that exclude words or terms you don't want. NOT narrows your search.

You can also narrow your search by putting a search phrase in quotation marks. For example, searching for "heart attack" will usually give you fewer results than just searching heart attack because it restricts results to those with the words next to each other, in that order.  This is phrase searching.

Many databases allow truncation where you enter the stem of your keyword but put an * instead of the end of the word: cranberr* will return both cranberry and cranberries.

I prefer using multiple lines to organize my search and group keywords. For example:

Many databases index articles but do not have the full text.  You will need to click on the Search UMass button  to get to the full text.  This will search the databases and collections the UMass Libraries own, and take you to a new page with your options:

If we don't have that article or book the 'Full Text Results' section will be empty.  The Libraries can still get you the full text!  Use the "Request this resources through Interlibrary Loan" link. It will bring you to your Interlibrary Loan account, where you can submit a request.

More about Interlibrary Loan

The first time you use Interlibrary Loan, you will be prompted to fill out a profile form, so we know who you are and how to contact you when your item arrives.

The profile form also asks you to choose a campus pickup location. This does not mean you have to come to campus to retrieve your articles!  All article requests are filled electronically.

After completing the profile, you should then see a pre-populated article request form. Make sure all the required fields are completed (sometimes there's a glitch and they don't all transfer to the form), then submit it.  Within about 1-2 business days you'll get an email that your article has arrived!  The email will include a link into the Interlibrary Loan system, where your article PDF will be available download.