Peer Reviewed Articles on tarantulas

[hairmetalspider]

I'm currently in the midst of a college project in which I need to analyze a peer-reviewed journal article. I'm finding a ton on true spiders, but very few on tarantulas. (That, or if I do find them, they're not in 'true' peer-review form, which requires an introduction, materials and/or methods, results, and discussion section.)

If anyone has read or knows of any sites or specific articles in journals , or where one may find them, point them my way!

 

[Bigboy]

use proper terminology and you will find them. Also, once you find one, use its references sections to find others. Try google scholar or if you have access, Web of Knowledge. Also, ask your school librarians how to use their reference database.

Easy as pie.

 

[hairmetalspider]

Never mind, found one.

But if anyone wants to share one just for the heck of it, feel free.

 

[skinheaddave]

There are just a few sprinkled around here: http://www.americanarachnology.org/JOA_online.html

As a bit of a side-note, I am constantly depressed by how many people make it out of university not knowing how to properly use libraries, online journal databases etc. One of the most useful things you will learn in school since it opens up the chance of learning pretty much anything you want from that point on.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Pulk]

I'm currently in the midst of a college project in which I need to analyze a peer-reviewed journal article. I'm finding a ton on true spiders, but very few on tarantulas. (That, or if I do find them, they're not in 'true' peer-review form, which requires an introduction, materials and/or methods, results, and discussion section.)

Doesn't "peer-reviewed" just mean reviewed by peers? Those other things are nice, but what do they have to do with peer review?

 

[skinheaddave]

Doesn't "peer-reviewed" just mean reviewed by peers? Those other things are nice, but what do they have to do with peer review?

You are technically correct. That being said, in this case it sounds like it is an introductory science class and that means the target "peer group" in this case would be professional/serious scientists. Since the journal set which that peer group writes and reviews for generally have submission guidelines along the lines of what was written there, it is a good way of steering students towards the right types of documents for the exercise.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[hairmetalspider]

There are just a few sprinkled around here: http://www.americanarachnology.org/JOA_online.html

As a bit of a side-note, I am constantly depressed by how many people make it out of university not knowing how to properly use libraries, online journal databases etc. One of the most useful things you will learn in school since it opens up the chance of learning pretty much anything you want from that point on.

Cheers,
Dave

Wow. That was quite presumptive of you.

 

[hairmetalspider]

You are technically correct. That being said, in this case it sounds like it is an introductory science class and that means the target "peer group" in this case would be professional/serious scientists. Since the journal set which that peer group writes and reviews for generally have submission guidelines along the lines of what was written there, it is a good way of steering students towards the right types of documents for the exercise.

Cheers,
Dave

Not quite. We're actually analyzing and critiquing said reviews by peers, as well as the actual article itself as a short review in which some of us (although not I) are actually submitting articles to the scientific community.

 

[Bigboy]

Wow. That was quite presumptive of you.

Not really, and from what I know about Dave, it was not aimed at you in particular. There really are a lot of college grads that never learned how to properly use libraries or their journal databases.

 

[skinheaddave]

Wow. That was quite presumptive of you.

Not at all. Firstly, you will notice that it was not directed at you. I was referring to people who make it out of univeristy without learning these things. You are in university or "college" as you call it down there and are currently in the process (hopefully) of learning these things.

And there is no presuming involved. I have met many, many, many people with post-secondary degrees and no idea how to use information resources. I lived for a time with a grad student who didn't know how to search the literature. I'm hardly going out on a limb saying such people exist and that it bothers me.

Not quite. We're actually analyzing and critiquing said reviews by peers, as well as the actual article itself as a short review in which some of us (although not I) are actually submitting articles to the scientific community.

You're doing what? How are you getting ahold of the product of the review process? Not that this affects the point I was making. You are clearly interested in the peer reviewed journal world of the professional scientists which will have submission guidelines resulting in papers of the format you suggested.


Cheers,
Dave

 

[Nerri1029]

That was an experience I lacked getting my degree in Chem Education.
Not that reading journal articles was less important to an Ed. major, it was more a function of scheduling and credit hours. It's hard to take all the Chem electives when you have 30+ credits of education courses to take.

Granted when I was in college the internet was still in the delivery room.
It had been born, but was so very small and new.

1987 Number of hosts breaks 10,000

Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000

 

[Stylopidae]

use proper terminology and you will find them. Also, once you find one, use its references sections to find others. Try google scholar or if you have access, Web of Knowledge. Also, ask your school librarians how to use their reference database.

Easy as pie.

To extrapolate on your point...

Web of Science is one of the best engines out there. Citation hopping is possible through google scholar, but it's clumsy as hell. WOS allows you to go both foreward (looking at citing articles) and backwards (looking at cited articles) very easily.

You can also use authors to look for literature. When searching, the first author will generally find you articles closely related to the one you're looking at while the last author will generally find you a wider breadth of stuff since the last author is generally the PI.

 

[skinheaddave]

If we're onto tips, broader taxonomic categories are included by convention after narrower ones. In titles etc. you will see the species name followed by (Araneae, Theraphosidae).

Since titles are uber-serachable, if you search for Theraphosidae you will find a lot of papers. Even just in Google Scholar it pulls up results aplenty. Put that in Web of Science and you will quickly find yourself having to narrow your search terms. By contrast, if you put in "Tarantula" then you will find some where a common name inlcuding "Tarantula" has been used .. but not nearly as much and certainly not as high a quality in general.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[QuantumGears]

I too am doing a project (for organic chemistry lab) involving tarantulas. I might suggest science direct as a database and searching genus and species of specific tarantulas, or revise the terms you're using.