Search for the scientific name of your organism in the Catalogue of Life. Under Classification locate the following information: 

• Kingdom
• Family
• Genus
• Species

Catalogue of Life citation example:

Page title. Date of Publication. City (ST): Publisher or Producer; [Date accessed]. URL.

Lynx rufus (Schreber, 1777). 2020.  Leiden (The Netherlands): The Catalogue of Life; [accessed 2023 November 2]. URL.

Books can be a great resource for finding general background information on your organism. You can find books by searching for your topic and narrowing your results to books and ebooks. Our database Credo Reference can also take you to helpful ebooks.

Missing some information? Try adding in different keywords like: habitat, diet, mating, etc.

Websites for locating background information:

When searching for information about the connection between humans and your organism, it will be helpful to combine search terms. This information can be found in a variety of source types.

Try combining the scientific or common name of your organism with different search terms related to human life.

Here are a few examples:

economic impact, uses, medicinal uses, health benefits, food, pests, tourism, etc.

The best place to find current research on your organism is through peer-reviewed academic articles.

When searching for current research, remember to narrow your results down by date to make sure your sources are recently published!

Locate relevant scientific articles in the following library databases:

Images can be found in a variety of places including: magazines, websites, or books.

For magazines and books, you can use the search bar at the top of the page and narrow results to your desired source type.

Citing images in CSE (name-year):

Creator’s name. Title (descriptive word). City (ST): Publisher or Producer; [Date accessed]. URL.

Killingsworth S. Country cat, city cat (photograph). Berkeley (CA): Bay Nature; [accessed 2023 November 6]. URL.

For this assignment you will be citing using CSE (name-year).

Citing sources is hard! But don’t worry, UNE librarians are here to help! Need citation help? Stop by the library, use our chat service, or send us a message in Ask a Librarian.

Within your references, you will also include a short explanation of why each source is authoritative and reliable (an annotated bibliography).