Dr. Archimedes

Finding Scientific Research Articles

The SPSCC library has great resources available for accessing the scientific literature on whatever topic you're interested in.  The best database for accessing research in nutrition is the Proquest research library.

 

To access Proquest, go to the SPSCC Library, select "Databases", and then "Databases by Subject".

Click on the first link:  "All Subjects--Multidiscipline" and under that:  "Research Library (ProQuest)".

 

CLICK HERE (Links to an external site.)  to go directly to the Proquest search page.

 

You may need to enter your SPSCC e-mail and password to access the database.  If you have not yet activated your student e-mail account, go here for more information:  Student e-mail help (Links to an external site.)

 

Once you're in the Proquest database, you'll see a website that looks like this:

This is your search bar.  Go to the box indicated by the red arrow above and type in whatever search term you want.  For example, if you're interested in vitamin D, just type in "vitamin D".  If you're interested in selenium, type in "selenium".  You can also search for the role of vitamins or minerals in a particular condition or disease.  Just enter "vitamins and alcohol" or "minerals and cancer" or whatever topic you're researching.  For the Nutrition and Aging assignment, you might search on a particular disease of aging or a particular nutrient, like "Alzheimer's nutrition" or "vitamin A and aging".

 

I want you to search for scientifically sound, peer-reviewed, recent research.  To make sure that's what you're getting, you'll need to set a few search options.  The search options section is located right below the search bar. You want to limit your search to full-text articles that are peer-reviewed in scholarly journals, that involve research on humans, and that have been published in the last 3 years.

 

Before you hit  your search options should look like this:

Now you're good to go! Select the article that looks the most relevant or most interesting and proceed with your assignment.  You will still need to check to make sure that your article involves research on humans.