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Health Research Basics

Your intro to research resources & techniques for using the library catalogue, evaluating resources you find, avoiding plagiarism, searching medical databases & referencing

 

 To supplement your course readings or to get started with your research project, UNIC's Library Search catalogue is the best way to find any books, e-books, journal articles, or databases you need.

Defining your research question

idea lightbulbTo focus your research, think about what kind of question you are asking.

When you are  learning about a new topic in medicine, you are probably looking for answers to who, what, where, why, when, & how questions. These are also called background questions. Asking these kind of questions helps you explore a new topic & answers can be easily found in articles & text books, & basic reference sources,  such as Wikipedia or a Research Starter online article in the library catalogue. These are  questions such as:

  • Who invented the Pap test?
  • What is chronic kidney disease?                  
  • How can we prevent falls in the elderly?
  • What can you do to warm up someone with hypothermia?

1.   Break down the topic of interest into its narrower aspects & choose one that interests you.

E.g. kidney diseases > chronic kidney disease (ckd) > how is it diagnosed?

2.  Use UNIC's Library Search catalogue to find  books, eBooks & ejournal articles 

3.  Enter words that describe your topic into Library Search.

E.g. chronic kidney disease, diagnosis   

4.  Follow the link to your left to learn how to access eBooks & full text articles via OpenAthens.

Use UNIC's Library Search to find...

​To find ebooks and/or journal articles, enter your keywords and select E-resources from drop down menu   

 

To limit your search to only eBooks  or only journal articles, select RESOURCE TYPES from the left column of the search page to limit your search for one or both, or to any another type of E-resource listed.
  
To access full text of eBooks or ejournal articles, use your OpenAthens log in  details.

 To see if the library subscribes or provides open access to a specific journal title, select Journals

Also, you can search journals by category

You can search within the specific journal for content you want or select full text access to see how far back the online subscription goes.         If you need an article that does not appear within our coverage range, please contact the library for assistance.         

Find a book on the library shelf to begin your research via the Library catalogue and then select Print Resources.