The Hill system of ordering chemical element symbols was developed by
Edwin A. Hill, and was published in 1900.  A compound’s Hill order formula
may be different from its empirical formula.  There are some basic rules to
follow to put your molecular formula in Hill Order:

After selecting the box next to the substance and clicking “Get References,”
you can Narrow the Results.

Narrowing the Results

In the “Get References” menu, select “Selected Substances” to see only the
substances you checked.  You can narrow the list of references by selecting what
types of references you want to see.  In this example, from our search by
molecular formula, we have decided to narrow the list to preparations only.

After viewing the list of references, you may want to narrow the list again by
choosing “Analyze/Refine References.”

The “Refine” menu offers several choices for narrowing the results of your search.

You may find it helpful to restrict your references by language or by date of
publication year.

The list of references will look something like this example (from our search by substance identifier):

Now you are ready to Select and Find Specific Articles about your substance.

Selecting and Finding Specific Articles

Each article citation will look similar to this example
from our search by substance identifier:

Some articles, like this example, are available online. If the full-text article is
available online, a full text icon will appear below the microscope icon.

Clicking the full text icon will open an Internet browser for ChemPort: 

This article is from the journal Inorganic Chemistry, Volume 39, issue 17, pages
3934-3937, published in 2000.  To see the full bibliographic information and an
abstract, click on the microscope icon to the right. 

If the full text is available, you will see a "Discover UIUC Full Text" link
to follow or it will take you directly to the full-text by opening
a browser to view your article.

If the full text is not available, you will see this message

If ChemPort does not provide a full-text version, it is possible
that the title is online via the UIUC Catalog.

Choose either Quick Search or Advanced Search.

Enter the title, author, etc. to use the Quick Search. Using the quick search,
enter the title of your journal. If you know the journal title,

volume number, issue number, and page number(s), you can find
your article.  In this example, we're looking for an article
in the 1989 issue of Biotechnology and Applied Biochemistry.
 Leave out "A," "An," or "The" as the first word. Be sure to spell out the journal
title; don't use the abbreviations you might find in a citation. For a more
precise search, limit your search to magazines/journals
and search by the start of the title.  

Use the ISSN (found in the citation) in the Advanced Search.

If we have access to an online version of the article,
you will see this symbol   to the right of the entry. 

The link will take you to the Online Research Resource page (ORR)
where you can choose a link that will take you to the citation.  If an article
is not available online, it may be available in print at the Chemistry Library,
or in high-density storage at
the Oak Street facility. 

Finding Print Articles  

Journal titles in citations are often abbreviated. The Chemistry Library has the
Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI) on reserve if you need help
deciphering a title in a citation.

To see if the Chemistry Library carries the journal, check the Online Catalog. 
A link to the catalog appears on the green menu bar at the top of the
Chemistry Library home page.

Use quick search or advanced search as previously shown to find the article
you are looking for.  Click on the title of an entry to see the full record page for the
title you want. (Although this title is available online, you'd find out
that it isn't available as far back as 1989.)

The full record page will tell you where you can find the
volume you need.  At the bottom of the full record page,
you'll find the list of holdings that have the 1989 volume.   

In this case, the volume you want (vol. 11) is shelved at the
Chemistry Library. You can go to the Chemistry Library to
find it.  If the only available copy is at the Oak Street Facility,
you can retrieve it by using the request function at the top
of the page (in the online catalog) which will take you
to the request form.  

This concludes the tutorial.  If you need further help, please
contact us at the Chemistry Library, 170 Noyes Lab,
333-3737, or email chemlib@library.uiuc.edu.