Below I provide a brief summary of some of these databases. The reference desk at the library is an excellent source of help if you have never used any of them. You can get to it either through databases by title or subject. Although it is stronger in molecular and biomedical areas, it also includes many of the top journals in evolutionary biology. The full record also includes the abstract for many of the articles, a time-saving feature if you are not sure from the title how relevant an article is.
Older versions are available only on paper.
It can also be used to search for papers that have cited a relevant paper or author. This feature is particularly useful if you have discovered a key older paper on your chosen topic. Just as the Literature Cited section of a paper allows you to search backward in time, this SCI feature allows you to search forward in time. Another useful feature of the SCI is that you can limit the search to particular kinds of documents, such as review papers. This is useful when you are looking for more general papers to help with topic selection.