Physical Activity & Nutrition: Articles & More
Physical Activity Resources
- SPORTDiscusCovers citations to articles and books on recreation, exercise physiology, sports medicine, coaching, and physical fitness as well as the psychology, history and sociology of sport.
Moving from a Research Question to a Search Strategy in 4 Steps
Moving from a research question to an effective search strategy involves breaking down the question into its Core Concepts, brainstorming Keywords, and then constructing an effective Search Strategy. You can do this in 4 steps.
1. Articulate your research question
Is union representation good for public employees in Oregon?
2. Break down your research question into its core concepts.
- Union Representation
- Public Employees
- Oregon
3. Now list alternative ways of describing these concepts.
Your list can include broader, narrower, and related concepts.
Union Representation: | Collective Bargaining | labor union | labor dispute | SEIU |
Public Employees: | workers | state worker | employee | staff |
Oregon: | Pacific Northwest | Washington | United States | Portland |
4. Create multiple search strategies by combining words from your concept brainstorm list.
- Union AND employee AND portland
- (Labor Union OR collective bargaining) AND state work* AND oregon
- Etc.
Tips
- Use truncation (an * at the root of a word to find different word forms. For example, librar* will find libraries, librarian, librarians, etc.
- Use parentheses and the OR operator to "nest" your search--different terms/phrases that represent the same concept.
- Use quotation marks for phrase searching.
- Use Boolean operators to connect search terms:
- OR -- finds results with either or both terms -- it is used to broaden your search.
- AND -- finds results with both terms -- it is used to narrow your search.
Acknowledgement: The content in this box was based off of Mandy Swygart-Hobaugh's work at Georgia State University Library.
Nutrition Resources
- Food Data Central - USDASearch the nutritional make-up of foods and products.
- USDA Dietary Reference IntakeAccess Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) tables, reports, and compare with historic RDA values.
- MedlinePlus Drugs & SupplementsProvides information regarding herbs and dietary supplements.
- Alt-HealthWatchContains full text articles and other publications covering topics in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
- NutriXivA free preprint service for the nutritional sciences
Mulitdisciplinary Databases
- Web of ScienceMaintains citation searching for high impact research journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and sciences and includes emerging sources citation indexing from 2005.
- SAGE Premier JournalsComprised of full text, scholarly journals in the social sciences, business, humanities, science, technology, and medicine from 1999 to the present.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar searches the academic, scholarly Web for peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles. Searching Google Scholar from the Portland State University Library will identify full text articles available from PSU Library resources as well as open access articles from other universities and colleges.
- Academic Search PremierProvides selected full text, scholarly, and peer reviewed articles in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Dissertations & Theses
- Dissertations and Masters Theses Global (ProQuest)Maintains citations, abstracts, and full text of dissertations from 1997 to the present along with citations and abstracts for selected masters theses from 1962 to the present. Includes subject, title, and author indexing to U.S. dissertations from 1861 to the present.
- Dissertations and Theses Open (PQDT Open)This repository holds the full text of open access dissertations and theses. The authors of these dissertations and theses have chosen open access publication of their works, thus providing free access from the Internet.
- British Libraries Electronic Theses OnlineProvides access to theses and dissertations in the UK. In order to download one must register with the site, but downloads are free.