How to find research?

"How do you know that?"

"Where did you find that?"

I get questions all the time like this.

So here is a post on how to find stuff.

When I am looking for info for my research or anything scientific in nature I always go to PubMed first. I'm sure everyone is familiar with Google Scholar by now, but the problem with Google Scholar is that you need to give it VERY specific words to search for what you are looking for or you will get thousands of hits to irrelevant stuff. One last thing about Google Scholar, it is good if you are looking for something from a non-traditional source. I found a great set of articles about DanceSport from the journal FACTA UNIVERSITATIS Physical Education and Sport, which is from Croatia.

PubMed looks at the good scientific journals that have the info you really need. I know some of my professors have snubbed PubMed for Medline, CINAHL, etc, but anyone can access PubMed and sometimes you can get free articles. (Another reason I like PubMed is that they list the articles chronologically.) With other databases you have to have a login access, which means you have to be student, staff, or faculty. The only database I use with login acces is Web of Knowledge/Science. I like it because you can look at a specific article's references and they link to other articles that have referenced that article you are looking at. Plus with PubMed and Web of Knowledge/Science you can click on any of the authors of an article and see what else they have written.

Yes, I do look things up on Wikipedia, but you really can't reference it, so I just use it as a jumping off point. I look for better key words or phrases or authors names (especially spelling).

One of the annoying things about the University of Wolverhampton is that you can't access everything at home using the University's Library website. At BYU you could be anywhere in the world, and if you were logged into the Library's website then you could access anything. When I was home in March-April for the wedding I would have to have my Mom log into BYU's Library with her staff id so I could get the articles I needed because the UofW Library website sucks! I complained about it and I found out I am not the only one who has complained, but nothing has happened. Bureaucracy!

BTW, my friend suggested signing up for Academia.edu when I first started my PhD. Since then people have been looking me up! I get a Google alert whenever someone searches my name or previous research. I still haven't had my Master's Thesis published (working on it now), but because BYU has it available on their library's website people can look it up and read it. (Dave looked it up when we were dating and didn't understand a word.)

Hope this helps for your future research!