What is a peer reviewed journal article?

• Go to this link to find out the difference between journal and magazine articles!

How do you use databases to find articles?

• Go to the COCC Barber Library webpage at http://campuslibrary.cocc.edu/default.aspx.

• Look for this pull down menu:

  Articles & More: Databases

  Select Subject All Databases Applied Sciences Business Education Encyclopedias and other sources Health Sciences Humanities Legal Issues News Science and Math Social Sciences Databases for OSU-Cascades
  

• Pull down the menu and choose Health Sciences and/or Social Sciences

• Choose one of the databases listed.  Think about your topic and choose the best database for that topic!

• Think about using the following search hints:

  Database Search Hints start with keyword searching--think of various words that pertain to your topic... include medical terminology and synonyms.  More keywords means a narrower search! use " " for phrases: "blood pressure" use * to locate endings to words (truncation):  smok* use boolean commands:  (nicotine or smok*) and pregnan* or commands link synonyms and commands combine concepts use the pull down menu to limit searches to titles you can limit searches to scholarly articles in many databases.

How do you get to the actual article?

• Databases are online collections of information about journal and magazine articles.  Some databases give the article in full text, which means that you can read and print off (or e-mail) the article right from the screen.  To get to that full-text, click on the  html or pdf fulltext link under each article in your results list.

• Other databases provide citations to the articles--which is just the author/title/date/pages information and leave it to you to locate the actual article.  Go to our e-journals link from the library webpage to track down the electronic full text for your citations (type in the title of the journal you're looking for).  If that doesn't work, try typing in the title of your article in Google (believe it or not!) and if that doesn't work, go to our Interlibrary Loan link on the Library webpage.
  

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.

How about OSU's Library--do they have databases I can use?
Note--as of 9/07 we are still ironing out licensing issues pertaining to OSU's databases--these may not be accessible at this time.

Yep...OSU's Valley Library will allow you to access their databases from any COCC Library computer workstation (but not from elsewhere on campus or from your home).  A great database for stress-related topics is:

• PsychInfo is another great database for exploring psychological or motivational aspects of sports/exercise science.  Again, go to http://osulibrary.orst.edu/cascades/ and look for the link to their list of databases on the left.

cfinney 9/07