Nutrition and Dietetics: Find Articles
Important Update
The new PubMed is here.
PubMed has officially implemented its new interface. This is a change that has been in the works for a while; an FAQ about the transition is available and may answer many questions you have. The National Library of Medicine has also created some helpful quick tours and other documentation to help you learn to navigate the new interface. Don't hesitate to reach out to me with questions.
Medical and Health Studies Databases
- PubmedThe main source for medical literature.
- MedlineAnother interface for searching the Pubmed database.
- CINAHL PlusThis is the major nursing database. Often the resources available here can be more accessible than those in Pubmed.
- Health Source -- Consumer EditionDatabase with health information in popular journals.
- Health Source -- Nursing/Academic EditionMore scholarly information than in the consumer edition, but more accessible than Pubmed.
Education Databases
These databases are devoted to the scholarly and popular literature in the field of education. These resources are useful if your research is related to pediatric nutrition or school lunch programs.
- ERICThe most comprehensive source for scholarly literature devoted to all aspects of education.
- Education Research CompleteGood general database in the field of education.
- Professional Development CollectionDatabase that is focused on the professional literature targeted towards teachers in the field.
General Databases
These databases provide good information for many of the subject areas that fall under the umbrella nutrition and dietetics..
- Academic Search CompleteA good general database that has broad (but not deep) coverage of scholarly and popular literature in a wide variety of subject areas.
- AgricolaAGRICOLA indexes materials owned and cataloged by the National Agriculture Library, including research related to food and food science.
- bioRxivAn open access preprint repository for the life sciences. Articles initially posted in bioRxiv HAVE NOT gone through the peer review process, so be careful. Some older articles may have links to the final published version.
- Food Science Source This link opens in a new windowFood Science Source includes more than 1,000 key food industry and market reports, as well as tens of thousands of additional food industry articles, benchmarks and best practices, selected from thousands of trade and industry publications. Designed for food industry experts and information professionals of all types, this database offers the foremost full-text collection of food industry-related content available today.
- Google ScholarGoogle Scholar uses Google's powerful online tools to search academic literature. Its index includes books, conference papers and gray literature in addition to articles in peer reviewed research journals.
- Social Science Citation IndexThe authoritative source for citation/bibliometric analysis information.
- medRxivAn open access preprint repository for the health sciences. Articles initially posted in medRxiv HAVE NOT gone through the peer review process, so be careful. Some older articles may have links to the final published version
- SPORT Discus with Full TextThis is a good index of both scholarly and popular literature in the field of sports studies and exercise science.
- Business Source CompleteBusiness Source Complete indexes thousands of popular and scholarly business journals, many of which are available in full-text. This is a good source for information on the business and marketing of food and food-related products.
Why would I want an article?
Primary article:
A primary article will contain original research on a topic.
Review article:
This type of article, sometimes called a secondary article, will summarize the research done on a certain topic.
What is peer review?
Peer review is the process by which articles are selected for publication in academic/scholarly journals. The articles are evaluated for accuracy, proper research methodology, and the correct interpretation and use of data by other experts in the field. No other publications undergo this level of vetting.
How do I know if something is peer reviewed?
If you are looking for peer reviewed articles, there are a number of ways to locate them. One way is to limit your database searches to only articles in peer reviewed publications. Many databases allow you to do this. For example, most EBSCO Host databases have a box labeled "Scholarly" or "Peer Reviewed" in the limiters section under the main search boxes.
Another way is to use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. This is an authoritative source for information about periodicals. Simply search the title of the journal using a title (keyword) search in the search box ont he top right of the page. If the journal is labeled as refereed: yes (or has a little icon of a referee's jersey in the results list) then it is a peer reviewed publication.
Search Tip: Use the Find It! Button
When you search a database for a "Full Text" item, you are only searching through that particular database for the document in full-text, and not our entire collection. An item may exist as a "Full Text" selection within a different database.
If you don't find an item as full-text in the database you're searching, use the "Find It" button to cross-search other databses for that same item. You may discover that we have electronic access to that material after all.
