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Exercise & Sport Science: EXSS4130 Library Research Module

A Library Guide to Exercise and Sport Science resources for students and staff of the University of Newcastle

Hello EXSS4130 Students, Welcome to the Help Guide!

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This guide has 11 sections to get you started with your library research for your Literature Review assessment.

Before you start, it is strongly recommended that you:

  • read the Assessment Instructions in your Canvas course site
  • read the Marking Rubric for the assignment in your Canvas course site

Helpful Libguide resources for this assessment include:

1. What Is a Literature Review

A literature review is a critical and in depth evaluation of previous research on a topic. Through your literature review, you can find what research, knowledge and practice have been developed in the area; the strength, weakness, trends or gaps of the research; and how the research is closely related to your project. 

Watch the video by Krueger Library WSU below on what is a literature review.

2. Library Guide to Literature Reviews

The Library Literature Review Guide is an introduction to the Literature Review process. It covers:

  • What is a literature review?
  • Searching for the literature
  • Critical reading
  • Writing your review
  • Keeping track of your literature, and
  • Examples

Click the following image to visit the Literature Review Guide

Literature Review Libguide

3. Understand Your Topic and Research Questions

Before you start looking for information for your systematic review, it is important to analyse your topic and plan for your research. Think about:

  • Has this review ever done by others before and how to find out?
  • Is the research question clear, well formed, focused and answerable?
  • How much information do you need?
  • What kind of information have you been asked to use?
  • Are there any limiters such as time, geographic locations, or study types?

Identifying key concepts and keywords in your topic will help you to locate relevant information more effectively. Also think about similar concepts and alternative terms e.g. sport OR exercise, aboriginal OR indigenous. 

These key concepts and keywords will form the basis of your initial search strategy. 

Watch the videos below on topic analysis. What are your key concepts and keywords?

 

4. Know the Search Tips and Library Search

Once you have identified the keywords included in your assignment question, you can think about how to use these keywords to conduct your search.

Using appropriate search techniques such as Boolean Operators, phrase search, and truncation can make your search more effective.

Watch the videos below and try the Library Search to find books and articles 

Using Library Search to find books and articles

5. Find Journal Articles Using Databases

Information or literature can be found in a variety of sources such as Library Search, Databases, and on the Internet.  

Library journal databases are collections of journal articles. You can find the best databases for your topic on the Subject Resource Guides to 

Exercise & Sport Science.

Not sure how to use them? Watch the following videos for using the following databases

EBSCO Megafile Ultimate covering SPORTDiscus and CINAHL

Medline 1946- (OVID) and Embase (OVID) and PsycINFO (OVID)

ScienceDirect Journals

Scopus 

Scopus basic search

 

Web of science

6. Use Snowball Search with Google Scholar

Snowball search is a search method that uses a key document on your topic as a starting point to find more other relevant publications by tracking down the citations.

  • Looking at the bibliography on the key document to find more titles published on the same topic 
  • Using databases or Google scholar to find other articles citing this document. 

Watch the video below and try a snowball search in Google Scholar on your key article.  You can find your key article in Google Scholar quickly by author, title or DOI. See the following for examples.

7. Evaluate Your Sources Using TRAAP

  • Locating sources appropriate for university assignments takes time and critical evaluation.
  • Understanding how to evaluate information should make it easier for you to choose sources for your assessments.

Watch the following video on evaluating your sources with the TRAAP method. 

 
For more information see our Resource Evaluation Tool

8. Manage Your Literature Using EndNote

A systematic review requires searching multiple resources on your topic. A good way to manage all your search results is to use a Citation Management Tool.

The library supports the use of EndNote for you to save, manage, and review the literature you have found for your literature review. EndNote can also create in-text citations and bibliography in Word automatically for you. 

From the library EndNote Guide, you can:

For a quick overview, watch the following video on how to use EndNote. 

For Windows Users

For Mac Users

9. Reference in a Style Required by Your Lecturer

The Library has created style guides for most referencing styles used at UON such as APA 7thVancouver Style and other styles.

APA Style

  • APA referencing style is an author-date style. It uses short in-text citations, with full details in the reference list.
  • Visit the Library Guide to APA 7th style for more details.
  • Watch the video and see the example reference list in APA style below

Vancouver Style

  • Vancouver referencing style is a numbered style. It uses Arabic numbers for in-text citations, with full details in the reference list.
  • Vancouver referencing style is widely used in the health sciences. It is a numbered style that uses citation numbers in the text (in-text citations) leading to the relevant numbered entries in the reference list that appears at the end of the work. 
  • Click the following image to visit the Library Guide to Vancouver style  

Vancouver style guide home page

 

10. Read Effectively for Your Research

You won’t be able to read everything on your topic and you don’t need to read a source from cover to cover, you need to read effectively.

Watch the video below on reading and note making for your research

11. Write and Present Your Research

Writing your report is an ongoing process of writing and re-writing. See the UON Academic Support Team’s Guide to Report Writing for detailed instructions on report writing, and always follow your lecturer’s instructions for what elements you are required to include. 

Watch the video below on Report Writing. Contact academic support for more help.