Library Guides: Vision Science: Articles

Find the PDF Copy of an Article

In the database search results, click the button to check for an online copy of the article.

Or, search by article title in UC Library Search; if it is available online, there will be a link to access it.

Search for Articles by Topic

BIOMEDICAL DATABASES

PubMed Citations and abstracts in the fields of biomedicine and health, as well as portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering.
PubMed includes MEDLINE, PubMed Central (PMC), other biomedical and life science journals, and the NCBI Bookshelf. PubMed also provides links to other NCBI molecular biology resources, including nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system.
Note: The link above goes to a specially configured version of PubMed for UC Berkeley users that will display the Get It at UC button for full text article access. To use the free public version, please click here.
Embase Search for biomedical literature citations. Embase is a key resource for conducting systematic reviews and researching evidence-based medicine. [dates vary]
Indexes journals, including many not in Medline, from over 90 countries, and indexes conference abstracts from many conferences. Broad biomedical scope with strong coverage in drug, pharmaceutical, and toxicological research including economic evaluation.

GENERAL SCIENCE

Scopus Indexes journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences and more.
Contains over 50 million records with more than half the content originating from outside North America. Indexes over 21,000 journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences, technology, medicine, arts, and humanities.
Web of Science Indexes leading journals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Allows cited reference searching. (ISI Web of Knowledge) [1900 - present]
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present).
Google Scholar Search across many disciplines and sources including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Lists journal articles, books, preprints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Can be used with "Get it at UC" to access the full text of many articles.

ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Inspec Archive (Engineering Village) Search the historical research literature in computer science, electrical engineering, electronics, and physics [1898-1968]. To limit your search in Engineering Village to the Inspec Archive, use the "3 databases are selected" link to update your search options. To search the current literature, we recommend Scopus.
Indexes scholarly journals, conference proceedings, books, reports, and dissertations in physics, electrical engineering and electronics, computers and control, and information technology.
ACM Digital Library Full text of every article ever published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and bibliographic citations from major publishers in computing. [1954 - present]
Provides full-text access to journals, magazines, transactions, conference proceedings and newsletters published by the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery). Includes most historical and all current publications.
Ei Backfile (Engineering Village) Search the historical research literature in engineering with a focus on civil, environmental, industrial, mechanical, and structural engineering disciplines [1884-1969]. To limit your search in Engineering Village to the Ei Backfile, use the "3 databases are selected" link to update your search options. To search the current literature, we recommend Scopus.
Indexes journals, conferences, technical reports, and other materials related to the engineering and technical literature.

BIOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE

BIOSIS Previews Citations for journal articles, conference papers, and books on a wide variety of biological and biomedical topics. [1926 - present]
Indexes journals, books, and conference proceedings are indexed on a wide variety of biological and biomedical topics. An electronic version to the print counterparts, Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts/RRM.

PSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE

PsycINFO Citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports. (Psychological Abstracts, Psychinfo) [1806 - current]
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, books, reports, and dissertations in psychology and enriched with literature from psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work.

MORE DATABASES

Conditions of Use for Electronic Resources

Conditions of Use and Licensing Restrictions for Electronic Resources

Searching for Citing References

It can be helpful to identify articles that cite your key references. There are a number of databases that can help with this. Start with Scopus, Web of Science, or Google Scholar. The more specialized databases may provide additional citing references.

Web of Science
Indexes leading journals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Allows cited reference searching. (ISI Web of Knowledge) [1900 - present]
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present).
Scopus
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences and more.
Contains over 50 million records with more than half the content originating from outside North America. Indexes over 21,000 journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences, technology, medicine, arts, and humanities.
Google Scholar
Search across many disciplines and sources including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Lists journal articles, books, preprints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Can be used with "Get it at UC" to access the full text of many articles.
PubMed
Citations and abstracts in the fields of biomedicine and health, as well as portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences, and bioengineering.

PubMed includes MEDLINE, PubMed Central (PMC), other biomedical and life science journals, and the NCBI Bookshelf. PubMed also provides links to other NCBI molecular biology resources, including nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system.
Note: The link above goes to a specially configured version of PubMed for UC Berkeley users that will display the Get It at UC button for full text article access. To use the free public version, please click here.
PsycINFO
Citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports. (Psychological Abstracts, Psychinfo) [1806 - current]
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, books, reports, and dissertations in psychology and enriched with literature from psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work.

PICO Framework for Optometry Research Questions

Population / problem examples: astigmatism, myopia, cataracts, eye tracking, children, adults, aged

Intervention examples: corrective lens, surgery

Comparison interventions are optional

Outcome examples: improved vision

Embase database has a handy PICO search form.

Search Operators and Tips

Search Tips

Preprints

Preprints are versions of scholarly or scientific papers that have not undergone peer review or been published in a journal. By posting preprint papers, authors can immediately share their findings with the scholarly community.

arXiv (e-Print Archive)
Preprints for physics, mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computer science and quantitative biology.
An e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, and statistics. (x archive - xxx.lanl.gov - Los Alamos ePrint Server)
bioRxiv
bioRxiv is a free open access archive for unpublished preprints in the life sciences.
bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.
medRxiv
medRxiv is a preprint service for medical, clinical, and health sciences. Preprints "should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information."
"Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review."
PsyArXiv
Preprint service for the psychological sciences. Allows scholars to post working papers, unpublished work, and articles under review. Maintained by the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Sciences (SIPS). [2016 - present]

Boolean Operators

Use "OR" when combining terms within the same PICO frame.

Use "AND" when combining terms from different PICO frames.

The "NOT" operator is a very blunt instrument; avoid it most of the time.

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Vision Science: Articles