Sport Sciences: Journal Databases

Library Discovery Search

1. Developing Keywords

Keywords are essential to researching. Break down your topic into keywords. Create a list of  words or phrases that will help your search. Think of concepts or ideas that are related to your main topic - find words with similar meanings, synonyms.

2. Phrase Searching

Use quotation marks " " for a phrase, i.e. when your keyword is made up of two or more words. Your result will be more accurate, as the engine searches for this very specific phrase.

• "soda bread"
• "food technology"

3. Boolean operators

These search operators help to narrow or broaden your search - like AND, OR, NOT.

AND finds records containing both terms - to narrow the search.

• "food technology" AND "bread making"
• "gluten free" AND allergies

OR finds records containing either one or both terms. This broadens the search. It can also be used to account for variant spellings. For example:

• food OR nutrition
• bakery OR patisserie

NOT finds records containing the first term, but not the second term - it excludes.

• chocolate NOT cake
• gluten NOT bread

4. Truncation

Using the asterisk symbol * enables you to chop off unnecessary word endings - so only the stem of a word is looked at by the search engine.

This is very useful for finding a broader range of results - as the search engine will come up with plural or singular endings, nouns, verbs, adjectives, AE or BE spelling.

• manag* : manager, managers, manages, managing, management, etc.
• bak*: baker, bakery, baking, baked, etc.

If you would like to find a particular journal article that you have come across on your reading list, etc. you can easily search for this on the Library Catalogue. It is even easier, if you have the reference for this article.

Our reference example above is in Harvard style. However, no matter what referencing style you have in front of you - determining the various components of a reference is a practical skill to possess.

• You can complete a simple Quick Search on the Library Catalogue - by typing parts of the journal article and/or the author's surname in the second search box. This box is connected to several journal databases, called "Discovery Service".
• You can also try looking up the journal title on the Journals tab in the Library Catalogue - working your way to the article by selecting the correct publication date, volume number, issue number and page number range.

Please see the help guide below for detailed information on finding a journal article or journal.

Getting an error message when you try to access our e-resources? You may need to try a different browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE) or device, or clear your cache.

If you are unable to access one of our journal articles, e-books, or other online resources, you can contact our e-Resources Team who are able to assist. Please use this form to contact the team https://lsbu-uk.libwizard.com/f/E-Resources_Access  including details of the item you are trying to access along with a screenshot of any error message. This will send your details to the e-Resources Team at llreres@lsbu.ac.uk 

Should service issues occur, there is an alternative links page available for a select number of resources.