Locating Articles on Exercise/Sports Science

Locating Articles on
BIOMECHANICS OR KINESIOLOGY

How do you find articles?

Locate journal and magazine articles by using periodical databases.
Databases cover a variety of topics. Choose the database most relevant to your topic. Most databases cover 10 years or so.
Databases are online collections of information about journal and magazine articles. Some databases give citations to the articles--which is just the author/title/date/pages information and leave it to you to locate the actual article.
Other databases give the actual full text of the article, which you can read from the screen, print-out, or e-mail to yourself. A few databases limit their offerings to citations, but also provide brief reviews--or abstracts--of the articles.

How do you know whether the COCC Library has the journal containing your article?

Look for a link that says HTML or PDF...that means you can print out the full text of the article right from the database!
If the article is not full text within a database you will need to:
        Check our online catalog in order to know which journals are in our collection.
        Or...check the "orange list" of periodicals floating around the reference section.
        If we don't have a journal, and it is not offered in full text via a database, we can order it for
        you on inter-library loan.

How do you gain access to databases (to find articles!) from off campus?

Click on this link to get to info about the many COCC Library databases may be accessed from off campus.

Which databases are good for kinesiology or biomechanics topics?

Go to the COCC Library databases page. Try the following databases:

These databases provide the actual text of the articles about 60-70% of the time. Again, if the article is full-text, you can print it out or e-mail it to yourself. Don't forget your print-card!

How about OSU Library Databases?

In the COCC Library only, you can access the OSU Library database titled: SPORT DISCUS. This database is:

A comprehensive database of sport and fitness literature on topics including sports medicine,exercise psychology, biomechanics, psychology, training, coaching, and physical education andfitness. The database also includes an index of dissertations and theses of the InternationalInstitute for Sport and Human Performance at the University of Oregon.

To get to SPORT DISCUS:

Go to the Cascades Library webpage at http://osulibrary.orst.edu/cascades/
Choose Article Databases A-Z from the left hand side of the screen.
Choose S, the scroll down to Sport Discus
Then click on the link to get to the database.
NOTE: this database contains very little full-text.
NOTE: this database uses $ as a truncation symbol.

Aren't there specific techniques for searching periodical databases?

Database Search Hints

start with keyword searching--think of various words that pertain to your topic...include medical terminology and synonyms.
use " " for phrases
use * to locate endings to words (truncation) NOTE: SPORT DISCUS uses $.
use boolean commands (nicotine or smok*) and pregnan*
or commands link synonyms
and commands combine concepts
you can limit searches to titles
you can limit searches to scholarly articles in many databases.

Give me a sample search for biomechanics, please!

OK, here are several:

For the Academic Search Premier database: benchpress* and biomechanic*

For Sport Discus database: benchpress$ and biomechanic$

For Academic Search Premier: (golf and swing*) and (biomechanic* or kinesiolog*)

How do I know whether an article is "scholarly" or "research based"?

Look for bibliographies at the end of the article. Look for footnotes. Check the date on the article--is it relatively current? Check the credentials of the author.

cfinney 2/17/05