Finding Literature Flashcards
Describe a reference librarian
- helps point you towards your most likely resources, but he or she will not necessarily be able to answer your research question(s)
Goals of the reference librarian
- to help you find suitable informational sources & to provide guidance & instruction for using effective search strategies
What does a reference librarian not do
- they do not represent the culmination of your research
Describe electronic sources & databases
- information from web sites & non-referred documents is questionable in terms of the accuracy & reliability of content
- peer reviewed journal articles from databases can usually be trusted to be credible & valid
Describe journal databases
- generally inaccessible to search engine indexes
- the inaccessible areas are called the invisible web
Define databases
-electronic libraries of indexed journals, books, & non-journal bibliographic literature that are overseen, managed, & updated on a regular basis
Describe refereed journals
- they publish articles that have undergone peer-review prior to acceptance for publication
Describe the peer review process
- a process by which a panel of experts judges the content & correctness of one’s work before accepting a research document for journal publication
Limitations of search strategies
- search results are only as good as the search strategies employed
Describe planned investigation
- begins with the understanding that searching & reviewing the literature is a purposeful & sometimes tiresome process
open source journal publications
- doesn’t mean they are bad
- it means that they paid the journal to publish the article
- must look at who published
Describe Boolean logic
- it’s based on logical relationships among search terms
- the operator terms (OR, AND, NOT) are used to combine search terms to create a different set of search directions for the computer to follow
Describe general appraisal
- should precede critical appraisal
- appraisal refers to judgements about the relevance & readability of the evidence
Describe critical review & appraisal
- sort out & organize search results/evidence as it accumulates
- this involves determining the relevance & readability of the literature & the quality & importance of the source
Describe critical review
- it’s the structured reading, undertaken to answer questions, identify key points, & recognize significance
How is the suitability of a paper determined
- determined by a quick read of the abstract in the preliminary evaluation
Questions to help you locate information in a paper
- Topic: what was the article about
- Purpose: why was the study of experiment done
- Methods & procedures: what was being measured in the study & how was it tested
- Results: what were the statistical findings from the study or experiment
- Conclusions: what was the take home message of the article
- Theoretical significance: why did you choose this particular article
- Critical appraisal: objectively review & comment on the methodology of the study
What is the quality of an informational source based on
- quality of an informational source as evidence is associated with the ranking or hierarchy of the evidence
What to do before initiating search strategies and finalizing critical review & appraisal
- know the expectations regarding the quality of informational sources before initiating search strategies
- confirm quality requirements before finalizing critical review & appraisal
What is the journal impact factor
- it’s widely considered a determinant of journal status associated with journal citation reports
- it’s a mathematical rating system based on the numbers of journal citations & article publications within a 2 year time frame
Impact factor limitations
- the metric comparison used does not tell us anything about the reputation of the peer review process for scientific literature
- rankings are limited by the fact that frequency in citation & publication do not necessarily equate to scientific expertise, quality of scholarship, or an active research agenda
- human judgement is the greatest limitation of the journal impact factor
Core databases for physical therapy
- Google Scholar
- PubMed
- HighWire Press
- PEDro
- CINAHL
- Cochrane
- Hooked on evidence
- SPORTDiscus
