A.C. Buehler Library: CHM 496-7 Chemistry Seminar: Primary Chemistry Sources

What are primary chemistry sources?

Primary sources are those where a researcher can find original data.
The major source of primary information are peer-reviewed journals.
These include:

Original articles (research articles) - longer, full accounts of orignal results of scientific investigations.

Communications and letters - short descriptions of new work requiring rapid publication of significant work from across the chemical sciences.

Publication Process

Popular Press: Material written for the general public.

Scholarly Journal: Articles written by experts in academic or professional fields.

Peer-Reviewed: Articles are submitted to rigorous scrutiny by other subject experts prior to publication.

Footnote Chasing

Journal Search (Bluejay Search)
Search for full text of a specific journal or browse our electronic journals by topic.

Select "Elmhurst User" and Use your enumber and password.

Sometime you want to track down the full-text of an article that you see in reference list of another article. This research technique is called footnote chasing or backwards searching. Because the library owns articles electronically and in print, you'll need to use two different tools to track down the full text.

1) To check if we have the full-text electronically, use the "Find an E-journal" or the "Citation Tracker" tool to see in which database it might be.

2) If you don't find it in our databases, try searching for the title of the journal in the Bluejay Search to see if we own the print version of it.

3) Finally, if you can't locate the full text in either location, you may want to place an inter-library loan request.

Bluejay Search This link opens in a new window

Where can I find primary chemistry sources?

SciFinder (requires an individual login) This link opens in a new window
SciFinder is a tool that accesses a wide diversity of research from many scientific disciplines, including biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, materials science, and agricultural science. Includes references from thousands of currently published journals and patents from 50+ patent authorities, as well as organic and inorganic substance information. If this is your first time using SciFinder, you will need to create an account with your Elmhurst email address by following this link to complete a SciFinder user registration: https://go.openathens.net/redirector/elmhurst.edu?url=https://scifinder.cas.org/registration/index.html?corpKey=110D3D52X86F35040X1DBB08961560689831
American Chemical Society (ACS) Publications This link opens in a new window
Includes the full texts of more than 30 periodicals in chemistry and related disciplines published by the American Chemical Society.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Access the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences and social sciences and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions. Elmhurst's subscription includes: Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, both with coverage from 1998-present.
ScienceDirect College Edition (Social and Behavioral Sciences) This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing to the entire Elsevier library. In addition, there is access to full-text articles in over 350 psychology and social science journals for the most recent 5 years. Besides listing articles that are already in print, ScienceDirect also lists articles that are about to be published.

NIST Chemistry Workbook
This site provides thermochemical, thermophysical, and ion energetics data compiled by NIST under the Standard Reference Data Program
Protein Data Bank
The Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) consists of organizations that act as deposition, data processing and distribution centers for PDB data

Non-Library Subscribed Academic Databases

Google Scholar - searches scholarly articles, peer and non-peer reviewed, gray literature, unpublished work, and articles from predatory journals

Science.gov - search results from 15+ U.S. federal agencies

Semantic Scholar - AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

BASE – 136 million articles

CORE – open access publishers

RefSeek- more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Snippets only.

Subject Guide

Jennifer Paliatka

Email Me

Subjects: Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Computer Science & Information Systems, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology

Library Contact Information

Reference Desk
(630) 617-3173

Circulation/ILL
(630) 617-3160