NSU Education Librarians - we're here to help! |
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Broken Arrow Campus: Jamie M. Holmes Office: Telephone EXT. 6456 (449-6456) |
Tahlequah Campus: Peggy Kaney Office: Telephone (918) 456-5511 EXT.3276 |
General Information for Students |
Resources |
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Search Tips |
Following APA style rules |
Glossary of terms |
Why use journals? |
Academic Search Premier - This is a general database, which means it contains article citations and full text articles covering many academic subjects. It is one of the twenty-five databases produced by EbscoHost for which NSU has a subscription. It is probably our most widely used database and is sometimes referred to simply as "Ebsco."
ERIC - This is another database produced by EbscoHost. ERIC stands for the Educational Resource Information Center. It contains more than 2,200 digests along with references for additional information and citations and abstracts from over 1,000 educational and education-related journals. ERIC contains a thesaurus, which can be very helpful in figuring out which search terms to use when looking for information.
Health Source Consumer Edition - This database is the richest collection of consumer health information available to libraries worldwide, providing information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. It features searchable full text for nearly 150 journals. This database is updated on a daily basis.
Professional Development Collection - Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly specialized collection of more than 550 high quality education journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles. This database also contains more than 200 educational reports.
Physical Education Index - This index includes information on a vast array of physical education related topics, from physical education curricula, to sports medicine, to dance. Other coverage includes sport law, kinesiology, motor learning, recreation, standardized fitness tests, sports equipment, business and marketing, coaching and training, and sport sociology/psychology. Health education and physical therapy are also covered as they continue to become more prevalent in our society. Records are indexed and classified from peer-reviewed journals, report literature, conference proceedings, trade magazines, patents, articles from the popular press, and many other publications. Beginning in January 2001, enhancements to the database include the addition of abstracts, e-mail addresses, expanded publisher and author information, and other data to facilitate access to the fulltext.
1. Be prepared with synonyms in case your original search produces no results. Use a thesaurus if the database is equipped with one.
2. Pay attention to search tips or help screens provided by each database. Even experienced researchers (like professors and librarians!) can have trouble when dealing with a new interface. Take the time to learn how to use the tool - it will help you to avoid frustration!
3. Remember that most databases allow for Boolean Searching. Use and to narrow, or to expand, not to exlude. Truncation is also useful for bringing back all relevant results. For example, type counsel* to bring back documents containing the words counsel, counseling, counselor...
4. Take advantage of the following sources of help:
- Reference desk: Located on the first floor of the JVL, the desk is staffed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by reference librarians or other experienced library staff members.
- College of Education Resource Co-Coordinators: Jamie M. Holmes and Peggy Kaney. Feel free to email us with a question or to schedule a one-on-one reference session.
The American Psychological Association originally created a publication manual to provide a common structure for all journal manuscripts in the area of the social sciences.
Many other disciplines (including psychology, the behavioral sciences, nursing, personnel administration and many areas within education) have adopted this as their professional writing standard as well.
In an academic environment, you will often be expected to conform to this standard when writing. At this point, you should be mostly concerned with creating an accurate reference list using proper format and providing citations within the text to give credit for an idea or concept to the source from which you got it.
Print:
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). (2001). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
The library owns several copies of the style guide; however, only the 4th edition circulates (can be checked out). There are five copies of the 5th edition in reference and one on reserve. (
Websites:
Using APA format (Purdue University) - this comprehensive guide summarizes the print version of the book. Click on Your Reference List to find examples of the proper format to use when listing sources you used.
APA style.org's Frequently Asked Questions
It's important to remember that publishing on the web is very easy - almost anyone can do it! The problem with that is knowing what's credible (worth your time) and what's not.
Here are some of the thing you want to look at or for:
the URL (.gov, .mil, .us, .edu are usually pretty credible);
links to information about the author or sponsoring organization;
links to other sites that are credible;
how current it is
Ultimately the researcher must be the one to determine whether or not to use information found on a web site. The following information from the University of California at Berkeley provides some excellent guidelines for evaluating sites:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.htm