HLTH 130: Introduction to Public and Community Health

Professor Ko
Web Page created by Tom Harrod, UM Libraries

The University of Maryland Libraries have many resources that will help with the research for your HLTH 130 projects. If you need additional information, please contact the librarian for Public Health, Tom Harrod.

Selecting a Topic

Choosing your topic can be a difficult process - it is important to pick a topic that is not so narrow that little if anything has been written about it, yet it is also important to pick a topic that is not so broad that there is too much information and it is impossible to develop a coherent and focused thesis.

There are numerous strategies for selecting an appropriate topic - here are a few tips to help you with that:

• Recent Journal Articles - One way to educate yourself on current topics in the field of public health is to browse through current issues of public health journals - this is the list of the public health journals to which the University of Maryland libraries subscribe, many of them are accessible on the web.
• CQ Researcher - This database contains articles which give a broad overview of recent topics of interest - try to find an article in here covering a subject that is interesting to you. These articles will give you good background information on your topic and they will help you to identify keywords to help you to have a more effective search in our article databases.
• Review Articles - These are articles which give you a broad overview of a topic and can help you to identify some of the key developments or questions pertaining to a given subject
• Boolean Operators - By using 'AND' & 'OR' you can narrow or broaden your search - if 'knee injury' brings back to many results try 'knee injury' AND 'high school sports' to narrow your topic. Alternatively if 'prevention' and 'eczema' brings back to few results, try: 'prevention' and 'eczema OR hay fever OR food allergies'.
• Keywords - It is important to realize that if you search a database with a certain word or phrase and you don't retrieve results to your liking, it doesn't mean that there are no other articles in that database on your topic. It may mean that you need to try other related words in your search, such as synonyms - for example: try 'automobile' or 'auto' instead of 'car'.
• The Assignment Calculator - This tool will help you to plan the steps that you will need to take to complete your research paper.

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Finding Resources in the University of Maryland Library

• Books - to find books in the University of Maryland Libraries, go to the library homepage (www.lib.umd.edu) and click on the 'Catalog'
  Once there, put in some search terms to look for books - just be aware that when you do a 'default' search it will look for those terms anywhere in the record. For example if you want books about New York and you put 'New York' in as a search term, you will also retrieve books that have New York listed as their place of publication on the catalog record


• Articles - to find journal articles, go to the library homepage (www.lib.umd.edu) and click on the 'Research Port' (this is our link to all the electronic resources, both journals and article databases, to which we subscribe)
  Once there, type in the name of the database that you are interested in - for a list of common article databases see below

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Choosing the Right Article Database

The University of Maryland subscribes to hundreds of article databases and each one covers a specific range of subjects. Below I have listed a number of databases which you may find helpful in locating articles on your topic of interest. However there are many more listed in Research Port - if you'd like further assistance with this, please don't hesitate to contact the librarian for Public Health, Tom Harrod (tharrod@umd.edu).

General

• Academic Search Premier - Multidisciplinary

• Cinahl - Nursing, Complementary Medicine, Allied Health
• PubMed - Medicine, Health Care, Psychiatry, Public Health, and More
• Science Citation Index (Web of Science) - Multidisciplinary Science
• Sports Discus - Sports and Related Disciplines

Psychology

• PsycARTICLES - Psychology
• PsycInfo - Psychology, Neuroscience, Medicine, Education, and More

• Social Sciences Citation Index - Multidisciplinary Social Sciences
• SocIndex - Sociology and Related Fields

• Biological & Medical Sciences - Biomedicine, Biotechnology, and More
• BIOSIS Previews - Life Sciences

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How to Read a Scholarly Article

Peer-reviewed scholarly articles are laid out in very uniform ways. These articles have a characteristic structural framework which is composed of several elements - each of which serves a specific purpose to guide the reader in his or her understanding of the material being covered. In order to understand a scholarly article it is important to understand that structural framework.

I have created this guide to show you the common parts of a scholarly article and to explain the importance of each. Please note however that not all articles will have these parts in the same place, nor will they call them by the same name - however each of these elements should be present in a peer-reviewed scholarly article.

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Identifying Primary Articles

The following information is adapted from the library's "Identifying Periodical Types" guide - click there for more information.

Here is a link which highlights some of the defining features of a Primary, Scholarly article

SCHOLARLY literature:

• contains the study methods and results of research performed by the author(s) of the article
• is written by/for those with some knowledge in a particular field of study - a certain level of familiarity with the subject is assumed
• gives the professional affiliation of the researcher in order to establish his/her credentials in their field
• is extensively referenced - authors must cite the work of others as it pertains to their own work
• is reviewed by peers who work in the same field (i.e. "peer-reviewed")

• may be written by experts in a given field or by professional writers
• is written for a lay audience
• does not usually contain references

Additionally, it is important to understand the difference between PRIMARY and SECONDARY sources.

PRIMARY literature:

• contains an "experimental methods" section
• recounts experiments that have been been performed by the authors of the articles themselves
• contains "raw data" compiled by the authors which will usually be presented in tables or charts
• attempts to address a specific hypothesis
• has references which give pertinent background information for the hypothesis being addressed in the paper

• often takes the form of a review article
• contains a summary of experiments performed by the author as well as other researchers
• may contain tables and figures, but usually not as many as a primary source
• is a good place to go to learn about a field of study with which one is unfamiliar
• has references which give a history of the research that has been done in a specific area of study

TERTIARY literature:

• is often comprised of compilations of primary and secondary literature
• is a good place to go to learn basic principles and facts about a particular field of study
• can become outdated as information usually takes a while to find it's way from a primary source to a tertiary source
• includes: almanacs, encyclopedias, text books, manuals, dictionaries, etc.

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Peer Review

"Peer Review" refers to the process whereby scholarly articles are read by several researchers who work in the field that is the subject of the article. These "peers" critique the article in terms of:

• the appropriateness of the experimental methods used
• whether or not the conclusion(s) given necessarily follow from the data presented
• the novelty of the work presented
• etc.

If you are not sure whether the article you have is peer-reviewed or not, go to Ulrich's, type in the name of the journal where you found the article and look for the little referee's jersey next to the journal's title - this indicates that it is refereed which is another name for peer-reviewed

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Plagiarism / The Honor Pledge

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, along with all other forms of academic dishonesty, is a serious issue at the University of Maryland. Plagiarism refers to any of the following activities:

• "Copying word for word, and neglecting to both enclose the words in quotation marks and to cite the source"
• "Summarizing or paraphrasing someone else's words or ideas and failing to cite the source"
• "Reproducing the organization or structure of another person's work and failing to cite it"
• "Any other act in which someone presents someone else's intellectual material as their own, whether it involves graphics, code, data, charts, etc."

For more information, check the library's webpage on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Honor Pledge

It is important to include the university's honor pledge on all assignments that you hand in. At the top of the first page of your paper, copy the following statement and then leave a space below for your signature

I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination.

Go to the Office of Student Conduct page for more information about the honor pledge.

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Writing a Paper in APA Style

For this class you will need to write your papers using the APA style. This means formatting your paper in the APA style as well as making your citations in APA style - check the resources below for more assistance:

• APA Citation Guide
• APA Formatting Guide (from Purdue University's "Online Writing Lab" or "OWL" - http://owl.english.purdue.edu/)

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Getting Help from a Librarian

If you are having trouble with any aspect of what has been covered above, don't hesitate to contact a reference librarian. The librarian covering the School of Public Health is Tom Harrod (tharrod@umd.edu / 301-405-7253 / 1526A Chemistry Library, Chemistry Building) - feel free to email, call, or just drop by for assistance in finding and evaluating articles, properly citing your references, etc.

Reference librarians are here to assist faculty and students at the University of Maryland in finding appropriate sources of information for their specific needs - so take advantage of this resource.

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