3. Where and how to find research articles
WHERE TO FIND
1. Journals
Research journals
Publish either original research papers or research reviews.
Relevant examples:
Professional journals
2. Internet
If the above are not an option, first the official ones:
HOW TO FIND
Strategies for literature searches: Since keywords may return 1000s of results, it makes sense to limit your search using Boolean operators:
Other limitation strategies:
1. Journals
Research journals
Publish either original research papers or research reviews.
Relevant examples:
- Journal of the American Physical Therapy Association
- British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM)
- Physical Therapy in Sport
- Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
- The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
- British Medical Journal (BMJ)
- The American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Professional journals
- NSCA: 2 printed journal available to members at a reduced fee, a few others free
- ACSM publishes 5 journals
- American Society of Exercise Physiologists: Journal of Exercise Physiology, Journal of Exercise Medicine (both online)
2. Internet
- PubMed, a free online service provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It links to abstracts and, in some cases, to full-text articles.
- NCBI, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) provides free, online access to biomedical and biological research publications, including PubMed.
- Google Scholar, a more generic search engine indexing a broad spectrum of disciples. One step up from Google, sorting out the non-scientific clutter.
- Libraries of colleges and universities provide free service to otherwise paid subscriptions services by publishers such as Elsevier (ScienceDirect) or EBSCO (SportsDiscus).
If the above are not an option, first the official ones:
- Write PDF and the title of the paper in Google like this: “pdf Reconceptualizing pain according to modern pain science” but without the “”.
- Write an email to the lead author. Their email address is usually found in the university profile. Very often you will get the papers within a few days.
HOW TO FIND
Strategies for literature searches: Since keywords may return 1000s of results, it makes sense to limit your search using Boolean operators:
- AND: Include two search terms. Example: contemporary AND Pilates
- NOT: Use to exclude a specific term. Example: administrator NOT manager
- Quotes: Use quotes to search for an exact phrase (more than 1 word). Example: "ACL injury"
- Parenthesis: Combine modifiers to create a more complex search. Example: exercise AND (“low back pain” AND LBP)
- Combinations: “contemporary Pilates” NOT “classical Pilates” AND "low back pain” AND LBP
- OR: Not recommended as it broadens your search with multiple terms. Example: "clinical Pilates" OR "Pilates-based"
Other limitation strategies:
- In the last 10 years
- English language only
- Term appears in abstract and title
- Term appears in title only
- Choose type of studies: RTCs or Meta reviews only