Marine Science and Policy

Resources in this guide are intended to support the study and teaching the Marine Science and Policy major. Included here are catalogs, databases, and web resources for finding information in a variety of formats (books and encyclopedias, articles and journals, film and video). Related subject guides are also useful to identify additional resources in other disciplines of interest.

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 fish stocks and water quality, try stating it in the form of a question: "How is the quality of water in inland bays affecting the stability of the commercial fish stock?"

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. This is the only step at which using Wikipedia is appropriate. 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 (blue crab) or a particular aspect of marine science (ocean currents).

You can use these keywords to search for books or magazine, journal and/or newspaper articles. Use the tabs on this guide to learn about each of these formats.