Research and Course Guides: EXSC 211: Introduction to Research: Finding the Literature

Essential Databases for Exercise Science

PubMed This link opens in a new window
The National Library of Medicine's openly searchable and highly comprehensive database of biomedical literature, providing citations from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
SPORTDiscus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
A database covering sports and sports medicine journals. Subjects covered include biomechanics, drugs, exercise, kinesiology, movement science, nutrition, occupational health and therapy, physical fitness, physical therapy, rehabilitation, sports and exercise psychology, coaching, and education. Limited to 1 simultaneous user.
CINAHL Ultimate This link opens in a new window
The primary database for nursing and allied health research with access to journal articles, book chapters, evidence-based care sheets, nursing dissertations, state newsletters, and continuing education modules.
How to use CINAHL

LibrarySearch

Research Strategies

Tracking Citations

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Following article citations in Scopus can help you identify highly influential articles in a field.

Primary Sources

Primary sources are ones written by the scientists who performed the experiments, during the time of the study - these articles include original research data.

Secondary sources are ones that summarize or compare lots of research in a particular area.

So how can you tell if a science article is a primary source? Primary research articles will include sections about:

methodology - explaining how the experiment was conducted
results - detailing what happened and providing raw data sets (often as tables or graphs)
conclusions - connecting the results with theories and other research
references - to previous research or theories that influenced the research