Welcome - BGGN 2xx - Biology Resources for Graduate Students - LibGuides at University of California San Diego

Off-Campus Access & Wireless

Most of the resources listed on this guide have been licensed by the UC San Diego Library. Off-campus access, as well as on-campus wifi access, is restricted to UC San Diego students, faculty and staff. Follow the links below to enable access on campus using your laptop, or off-campus access using VPN.

VPN (Use AnyConnect Client - Cisco)
Download VPN software on your computer to get off-campus access for everything that the Library has licensed for you, such as eBooks, journal article databases, and the full text of articles. When connecting, select the 'althruucsd' setting.
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Install client software on your computer (AnyConnect Client - select Conventional Download), then run and login with your username/password. MAKE SURE TO USE THE 'ALLTHRUUCSD' SETTING.
UCSD Encrypted Wireless
At UCSD buildings: use UCSD-PROTECTED wi-fi network to access licensed resources on your computer or mobile devices (UCSD students, faculty, staff only)

About This Guide

This guide is designed to help you start your research in biology and related biological sciences. Use the tabs above to discover and link to great resources that the UC San Diego Library is providing for your research.

Please contact me if you have any questions or to schedule a consultation (see box to the right).

Some other Library services you may be interested in:

Research Data Curation - offers consultation and training in good data management practices, as well as obtaining researcher identifiers.
Scholarly Communication - offers help with issues like copyright, author rights, UC's and funders' open access mandates and understanding the many options for open access publishing support at UC San Diego
Data & GIS Lab - help with weird data problems, GIS tools. Also operates "Datacruncher" computers you can use in Geisel or remotely.
Digital Media Lab - 3D printing/scanning. Physical lab in Geisel offers various equipment and consults.

Resources for Scientific Writing

These are some ebooks from our collections - all are restricted to UC San Diego users, so you'll need to be signed into the VPN to use them.

But the best way to learn to write in science is to read a lot of science!

A Scientific Approach to Scientific Writing / John Blackwell, Jan Martin
Contents: Maximizing Chances of Publication -- Essential Steps Before Writing a Paper -- Drafting Papers -- Complex Studies -- Linguistic Points -- Covering Letters and Referees' Objections -- Other Kinds of Written Scientific Communication
The Biomedical Writer: What You Need to Succeed in Academic Medicine / Yellowlees Douglas, Maria B. Grant
Contents: Writing : the most vital and neglected skill -- Writing for your reader's brain -- Before you begin : getting to so what? and who cares? -- Getting published : manuscripts, journals, and submissions -- Getting funded : applying for grants -- Collaborative writing : pass the baton -- Communicating with the public
How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper / Bjorn Gustavii
" The reader is offered practical advice - from how to present a paper and where to submit the manuscript, through to responding to reviewers' comments and correcting the proofs - all developed through the author's extensive teaching experience and his many years spent working as a journal editor."
How to Write Better Medical Papers / Michael Hanna
"This book guides medical researchers through all stages of transforming their data and ideas into a published paper. Many researchers in medicine struggle to get their research written and published. One reason for this is that most medical researchers have not received much instruction in the subjects needed to write and publish scientific papers: research methodology, ethics, statistics, data visualization, writing, revising, and the practicalities of publishing. This book tackles all the major scientific issues that routinely lead to manuscripts getting rejected from the journals. "
Writing Undergraduate Lab Reports: A Guide for Students / Christopher S. Lobban, Maria Schefter
First chapter on understanding scientific writing is a good introduction. You may find the rest of the book helpful for lab classes.