1 ©The University of Bolton 2018

1 ©The University of Bolton 2018

Finding academic information for Sport This workbook is designed to introduce you to academic databases relevant to Sport. Online databases contain large amounts of current academic information and are ideal for researching a topic. It is easier to search for information using online databases than using printed material. Some databases are abstract and indexing - these contain only bibliographic references of what has been published in your subject area, such as journal and newspaper articles, books, conference proceedings etc. If it is an abstracting database summaries of the information will be included as well. Other databases provide the full text of journal and newspaper articles. Some databases are a combination and will perform an abstracting and indexing function but will have links to full-text material on the database. You should use academic databases rather than search engines such as Google because the material you will find is guaranteed to be reliable and of an acceptable academic standard. Much of the information on the databases is from peer-reviewed journals - this is top quality academic information, which you should be using for assignments, rather than information from websites found via Google.

Which are the most useful databases for your subject? There are a number of databases listed on the Sport subject web pages. All contain relevant information but these are some of the more important ones: SPORTDiscus with Full Text provides bibliographical citations on sports medicine, exercise, psychology, training, coaching, physical education and fitness and other sport related disciplines. It provides full text coverage to over 500 journals.

IBSS Online is a social science database, providing abstracts to 1.5 million articles. This database could help you retrieve information on the sociological and cultural aspects of sport and leisure. Mass Observation Archive Online contains useful material on social history in twentieth century Britain. Medline contains useful material on anatomy, physiology and sports medicine. Proquest Central is a multi-disciplinary database which provides full-text access to medical and sociological journals, as well as a large selection of world newspapers.

Science Direct is a large collection of online journals, giving access to full-text articles from over 1000 Elsevier journals.

Top Tip Most online databases update their interfaces regularly, so the appearance of the screens and the steps to take may be slightly different to those in this guide, but the procedure for searching the databases will be essentially the same.

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Getting started Load the Library web pages: https://www.bolton.ac.uk/library/

You may want to navigate to the guide for your subject and explore the resources recommended for your subject. If so, click on Subject Guides on the Quick Links menu on the right of the Library home page and then select your programme area from the list of guides. Your subject guide provides a link for Discover@Bolton and a list of relevant databases and internet resources for your subject. You will also find general information on library services and study skills and links to relevant help guides and video tutorials, as well as contact details for your subject librarian. Alternatively, you can start your search for information on the Library home page by using Discover@Bolton. This is the Library’s integrated search platform which allows you to search many of the electronic resources the Library has access to via a single interface. The most useful resources for sport, SportDISCUS, Proquest Central and ScienceDirect, can be searched via Discover@Bolton, so you can start your search for information on this platform. If you are working off campus, you will need to log in with your university username and password in order to use Discover@Bolton. Click on the red bar to load the University of Bolton’s Electronic Resources Login screen.

Discover@Bolton You can access the Discover@Bolton search box on the Library home page, as shown above. This is the basic search box, which will search in the full text of thousands of journals, books etc. Your search results will be more relevant if you use the Advanced Search facility which will allow you to specify the fields you want to search. You can access this by clicking on the Discover search box on the home page and then clicking on the Advanced Search link beside the search box on the Discover screen. Before you start your search, think about the keywords you are going to search for. You should think about any related terms or synonyms you could try in case you don’t

Click here to access

subject guides

Click here to search Discover

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find anything the first time. For further help with developing a search strategy, see the Library’s Discovering Information tutorial in the My Research Needs section of LEAP Online, which you can access from the Quick Links on the Library homepage.

Advanced searching Use the dropdown arrow in the first search box to select the field you want to search, then type a keyword or phrase into the box beside it and click on the Search button.

If you want to, you can mark the appropriate check boxes to return results which are all peer-reviewed, scholarly information, with the full text available online.

Search tips Use inverted commas to search for a phrase eg. ”long distance running”.

Use the truncation symbol, *, to search for words with the same root eg. injur*, which

will search for injury, injuries, injurious etc. You can also use it to indicate characters within words, e.g. behavi*r finds behaviour and behavior. Use the wildcard symbol, ?, to search for alternate spellings eg. organi?ation would search for organisation and organization. You can limit or expand your search by using AND, OR, and NOT. This is known as Boolean Logic and is used by most electronic sources of information.

Using AND narrows the search by finding articles that contain both terms.

Using OR broadens the search by finding articles that contain either or both terms.

Using NOT narrows the search by finding articles that contain one term but not the other.

Click here to select search field

Enter search term here Change Boolean

operator here

Search button

Full text checkbox

Scholarly, peer-

reviewed checkbox

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Looking at your search results

Your results will show a mixture of different types of resources, such as journal articles, books, both those available online and those available in the library, reference material etc. There is also a preview link, which will show the abstract (if available) or the subject headings assigned to the resource and can help you to assess the usefulness of the resource.

If a citation is available online, click on Full Text Online. A new window will open in which you will be able to view the full text of the citation. If you haven’t already logged in to use Discover@Bolton, you may be prompted to log in with your university username and password at this point. If the full text has loaded as a PDF document, you will need to use the PDF toolbar to save or print it. This doesn’t always appear on the PDF screen. If it isn’t visible, hover your mouse over the centre top or bottom and it will appear on screen. If you are working from home make sure you have Adobe Acrobat which is required to view PDF documents. You can download the software free at: https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/ If the citation is from a print resource available in the Library, click on Check Availability. The Library Catalogue will open in a new window with the catalogue record for the resource, which will show you availability of the item and its location on the Library shelves. If Citation Online is shown, the full text of the resource may not be available via the Library’s print holdings and electronic subscriptions. Read the article’s abstract, to decide if the article is relevant to your research. If necessary, you can order resources online via the Library’s Inter-Library Loans service. Click on Citation Online to load to full details of the citation. On this screen, you will find a Request via Inter-Library Loan button. When you click on this button, a new screen will open which will enable you to log in to your library account and submit an inter-library loan request.

Full text

link

Preview link

Resource

type

Help button

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The Library has access to thousands of journals, so explore the full-text resources on the Ejournals portal as well as Discover@Bolton before applying for Inter-Library Loans, as there is a limit to the number of Inter-Library Loans you can have. The results page may also recommend databases which you might want to search individually. Sometimes, particularly on subject-specific databases, you can conduct a more refined search on an individual database.

Refining your results If your search has produced too many results, you can click on the options in the pane on the left to narrow down your results. If you didn’t restrict your search to full-text, peer reviewed material at the start of the search, you can do so on the results page. Peer-reviewed journals provide the highest quality academic information and you may wish to start with these results before looking at other sources. You can also narrow down by item type, subject area, date, subject term and language.

Note that after you have refined your search, an option to Clear Filters appears. Click this before you run another search, unless you wish to keep the same options. If you need help using Discover@Bolton, click on the Help button at the top of the screen.

Use the date slider or boxes to select a suitable date

range

If you have lots of results you may wish to limit them to a particular subject area to limit irrelevant results

Click here to refine to full-text only and scholarly,

peer-reviewed

Select item type

here

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Saving your results

As you review your results you can select useful ones by clicking on the folder icon next to the citation. The folder icon at the top of the results screen gives you access to your saved results. When you select a citation style for the references in your folder, Discover@Bolton will convert them to a list that you can print or email. NB. You always need to check any electronically generated citations against the University standard.

The citations will only be retained in the folder temporarily - when you exit the database or after 20 minutes of inactivity, they will be lost – but you can permanently save items by creating a RefWorks account within Discover@Bolton. Please note that this is not the same as the version you can access from the A-Z list on the Electronic Resources page, but a simplified version which will allow you to save references and create bibliographies.

RefWorks Click on RefWorks Log In to create your account and then click on the No Account button. Enter your university email, as you will be unable to create an account with a personal email, and choose your own password. Once you have created and are logged in to your RefWorks account, when you click on the folder item, your selection will be permanently stored in your account. To access RefWorks at any time click on the folder icon at the top of the screen.

RefWorks login Access your selected items here

Click here to add to folder

Click here to create

bibliography Help button More button

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Within RefWorks you can sort your results, create folders to organize your results by using My Folders and share resources with other people using the Sharing function, which allows you to email them directly from RefWorks. It is possible to select resources to create citations and a bibliography, which you can paste into your document, but note that you need to check each entry and you may need to amend the format of the bibliography to the exact style you require. There are other functions, which you can explore by clicking on the help button.

SPORTDiscus

If you want to do a comprehensive literature search, such as for a dissertation, you should use the SportDISCUS database, which reviews a wide range of literature in your subject area, both in print and electronic format. You can access this via the recommended databases on your subject guide or via the A – Z list on the Databases guide.

Basic searching

To begin searching, enter one or more keywords for your topic in the basic search box. If your search term is a phrase, rather than a single word, you can mark the Boolean/Phrase radio button instead of putting inverted commas around your phrase. If you mark the peer-reviewed tick box, you will ensure that your search returns are good quality references. You can use the SPORTDiscus thesaurus, which you can access from the top toolbar of the SPORTDiscus screen to help select appropriate search terms – sometimes terminology can vary across different countries.

After you have entered your search term(s) in the search box, click on the Search button and all items matching the search criteria will be displayed in a Results List.

Once you’ve conducted a search you can refine it by using some of the limits on the Results screen. Mark the checkbox for the limit you require and your search results will automatically be updated. Use the dropdown arrow to expand sections as required.

Thesaurus link

Boolean/ Phrase

radio

button

Help button Search

button

Apply limits in this section, if

required

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Advanced Searching Advanced searching is more useful than basic searching, as it allows you to combine searches from different fields, such as keyword, author, journal title, at the same time. To begin an advanced search, click on the Advanced Search link below the search box. Use the dropdown arrow in the box beside each search term to select the field that you want to search and combine your search terms using AND, OR or NOT (see Search Tips in Discover@Bolton section). You can click on Add Row for additional search boxes if you are conducting a complicated search.

Click here to load advanced search screen

Number of results

Mark check box to refine

search Click on arrow

to expand selection

Type search

term

then click on dropdown arrow and select field

Click here to change number of rows

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Top Tip

You can find search tips and assistance in using SPORTDiscus by clicking on the Help button in the top right of the screen.

Viewing your results

The results are given in brief format which gives the bibliographic information for the reference, the first line of the abstract and the subject(s) assigned to the reference by SPORTDiscus. If you want more information to see if the reference is relevant, move the computer

mouse over the icon and the details will be displayed.

If the article is available in full text through SPORTDiscus, there will be an HTML

link or a PDF link below the citation. If it is not part of the SPORTDiscus full-text collection, it may be available from another of the Library’s electronic journal suppliers in which case there will be a Linked Full

Text icon below the citation. You can also check availability by clicking

on the icon. A new window will open informing you whether the article is available and giving a link to the Library Catalogue to check whether the journal is available in print format. If it isn’t, you can use the ILL request form link on this page to request an inter-library loan of the material.

Some of your results may have a link under the citation. This can help you assess the merit of an article by how much is has been mentioned in the academic community, covering conventional citations in other journal articles and mentions on social media. Hover over the link to display the metrics on screen or click on the link to open another window containing the information.

Folder view button Item detail link Add to folder

botton

Full text

link

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Saving your results

If you click on the icon, you can compile a folder of references on a particular

topic. You can open the folder by clicking on the Folder button on the toolbar. To save time, you can add a page of results to your folder by clicking on the dropdown arrow beside the Share link and then clicking on the Results (1-10) link.

Please note that this folder will be lost when you log out unless you have created a personal EBSCOhost account, which you can do by clicking on the Sign In icon on the top toolbar. A personal account will also enable you to save search strategies and set up alerts, organize your results into folders and share them with other people.

When you view your folder contents, you have the option to save, print or email your references in a citation style of your choice or you can export your references to RefWorks, the bibliographic management software used by the University. Remember to check the format of the electronically-generated references against the standard on LEAP Online.

Top Tip If you want to work on your mobile phone, try using the EBSCOHost app, accessible via the link at the bottom of every page.

Finally

This guide is only an introduction to electronic databases. There are other resources available via your subject page which can help you with your research. Although all electronic resources have different interfaces, the search principles are the same and the Library has a variety of crib sheets and database guides to help you to search them. If you require further help please contact your librarian, Janet Dennis, J.Dennis@bolton.ac.uk on 01204 903593, or Subject Help, SubjectHelp@bolton.ac.uk on 01204 903232.

Text University of Bolton.

The screen shots used in this workbook are from copyrighted licensed works and the copyright for them is most likely owned by the publishers of the content. It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for training purposes qualifies under educational purposes to: “display, download and print parts of the Licensed Work for the purpose of promotion of the Licensed Work, testing the Licensed Work, or for training Authorised users”. Any other uses of these screenshots may be copyright infringement.

Print Email Save Export dropdown arrow and select field

Select all references here

or mark

individual

references

Help button