Animal and Food Sciences

Resources in this guide are intended to support the study and teaching of the Animal Sciences covering the animal core science (anatomy, nutrition, physiology, health, genetics, and behavior), pre-veterinary medicine (zoonotic diseases, care of companion animals and livestock), and animal biochemistry (virology, immunology, genetics), as well as the Food Sciences covering food processing and engineering, food microbiology, food chemistry and analysis, food biotechnology, and food product development.

Included in this guide are catalogs, databases, and web resources for finding information in a variety of formats (books and encyclopedias, articles and journals, film and video).

Choose a research topic that interests you. Once you have thought of a topic, try stating it in the form of a question. This will help to narrow your topic and focus upon the aspect of the topic that you are going to research. So if you first thought of writing about animals and treatment, try stating it in the form of a question: "How is the treatment of animals affected by large scale production techniques?"

Reading an overview of your topic from a general source such as an encyclopedia provides background information, key words, and often a list of books and articles for further reading. Use the background information you located to determine key words or phrases that might be used to describe your topic. You may want to focus on a particular animal (cattle) or a particular aspect of production (animal housing). You can use these keywords to search for books or articles in magazines, journals or newspapers.