Subject Guides: HHP 4899 Contemporary Issues in Health and Physical Activity: Get Started

Get Started on your Topic

MEDLINE
MEDLINE covers all areas of healthcare, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, psychiatry, and nutrition.
CINAHL Complete
offers information on nursing, the nursing profession, and allied health topics, including nutrition, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. Its coverage extends from 1937 to the present.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for more than 8,500 journals, including nearly 7,300 peer-reviewed titles. Its coverage ranges back as far as 1887 for some titles.
Google Scholar
This search engine searches for scholarly research across many disciplines and sources. By starting your Google search from the SPU pages, the results will link to SPU-owned full-text.

All SPU Databases

The above is only a select list of SPU databases I thought would be most helpful for this class. There may be other databases that would be helpful for this assignment - for example if your project has a business element you may want to search Business Source Complete, or if you are looking for information about the legal ramifications of your topic, you might want to search the database 'Legal Collection.'

Not sure which database is best for your topic? Ask a Librarian!

A-Z List of SPU Databases

Some Key Health and Human Performace Journals

Evaluating a Source

Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
This book describes an source evaluation method that is more like what news fact checkers use. This process may feel more natural and quicker than traditional library source evaluation tools, it also works partiuclarly well for evaluating social media, popular, and popular science sources.

1. Investigate the source
- "Check for previous work" Make use of existing fact checking sources like Snopes, FactCheck.org, etc. for news, or, for scholarly research, check for additional background information in encyclopedias, books, or journal articles.
- "Go upstream" find the original source by using references (or a google search) to link back to the primary source.
- "Read laterally" by searching for what other sources have to say about the same topic
- Circle back, using what you have learned, take a more informed path through the fact checking process
2. Trade up to more credible sources
- Circle back to a previous stage of the fact checking process
SIFT (The Four Moves) - Clark College guide
more detail than the above description on checking information like a fact-checker
Evaluating Sources Rhetorically & BEAM Model
another framework for evaluating sources & use of the BEAM Model for evaluating how a source might be used in your paper.
PARCA Test - York University (pdf)
framework for critically evaluating a resource.
CRAAP test - USC Chico (pdf)
framework for critically evaluating a resource

additional resources

Zotero

Citation management software are tools for managing all your references. With these products, you can often:

Organize citations into folders by class or topic.
Automatically create formatted references lists.
Use within Word to create formatted in-text citations.
Share citations with others.

Zotero is a freely available, open-source option, and there are many options, such as JabRef, EndNote, and Mendeley.

You can export citations from many databases into citation managers. Just look for an "Export" link, with RIS export working for most systems.

You will need to verify the citation against official style sources (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago), as citations ARE OFTEN formatted incorrectly.

Try one of these tools, or use your own system to keep all your sources organized! The main thing is to find a system that works for you and saves you time.

Synthesis/ Literature Review Example: Fernández, D., & Antolín-Rodríguez, R. (2018). Bathing a premature infant in the intensive care unit: A systematic review. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 42, e52-e57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2018.05.002

Guided Notes Page - class handout
Use this to keep track of your research and search terms as you work!

HHP 4899 Contemporary Issues in Health and Physical Activity

Psychology, Health Sciences, and Scholarly Communications Librarian

The Research, Reading, and Writing Studio