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Chemistry

A guide to chemical research, data, and news

About This Guide

Welcome to the Chemistry Research Guide.  Use the navigation menu to find data, scholarly resources and news about chemistry.  If you have any questions about this guide or chemistry-related research, please email JD Kotula, BU's chemistry librarian, at jdkotula@bu.edu.

Getting Started

Starting a research project?  Follow these steps to make the process more efficient:

1. Form a research question. Or, decide on what you want your reader/user/client to know after engaging with your project.  These are usually "how", "why", and "what" questions.  For example, your research question may be "How can chemists mitigate PFAS contamination in rivers and streams?" or "What is the most efficient way to incorporate machine learning into chemical simulations?"

2. Use a scholarly database to find research on your topic. You can find these on the Scholarly Literature page.  If you're unsure about which to use, try Web of Science first--it's a good, general database that indexes literature in nearly every academic field.  When searching for your topic, use keywords from your research question (these are usually the nouns and verbs in your question).  Try different combinations of keywords to get the most comprehensive set of results.

3. Ask a librarian for assistance. We're here to support you, so please reach out to us if you need help or if you just want to optimize your research.  You can find the many ways to reach us on the Ask a Librarian page.

Librarian

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JD Kotula
Contact:
38 Cummington Mall
Boston, MA 02215
617.358.6900