Exercise and Sport Science 

• The Cinahl database has moved from OvidSP to the EBSCO platform. Contact me if you would like help using the EBSCO interface.

If you're trying to track down a particular journal article - say one on your reading list - use the library catalogue. Find out more...

If you're trying to find journal articles on a particular subject, use one of our databases. [Find out more...]

Follow this link to Google Scholar to make sure you get full text access to journal articles that the library subscribes to.

Databases are a great way to find up to date, scholarly research. You will most often find journal articles in a database - but they might also include resources like conference papers, magazine or newspaper articles and book chapters. Databases usually focus on a particular subject, and can be searched using keywords relating to your topic.

Here are some of the key databases for Occupational Therapy - or click on More Databases for a complete list.

Never searched a database before? Here are some tips to get you started:

• Identify key concepts. e.g. 'type 2 diabetes' and 'exercise'
• Brainstorm synonyms for each key concept. e.g. 'diabetes mellitus', 'sport' 
• Use truncation to get more results. e.g. 'exercis*' will find 'exercise', 'exercises', 'exercising' etc
• Use double quotation marks to search for a phrase. e.g. "diabetes mellitus" 
• Use brackets to group terms together e.g. ("type 2 diabetes" OR "diabetes mellitus")
• Combine synonyms with OR and key concepts with AND e.g. ("type 2 diabetes" OR "diabetes mellitus") AND exercis*

Watch this short and funny clip to discover more.

Here are some Library resources outlining what a Systematic Review is and how to do a Systematic Review

A peer reviewed journal contains articles that have been reviewed by experts before publication. [See the peer review process in action...]

Check Ulrich's Periodicals Directory to see if a journal has been peer reviewed.

Click on the eResources tab to see a list of peer reviewed occupational therapy journals.

If you find a great article on your topic, you can use a citation database to track down related articles. These databases will show you the articles' reference list - and a list of who else has cited it since it was published.