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- Google Scholar
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Connect from Off Campus
Most of the Library's online resources are available to you from anywhere off campus. See: UL Proxy Account
Library Instruction
To learn more about the library and its resources and how you can exploit them to your advantage, register in the Research Skills Tutorial on D2L. There are several sections in the tutorial with a short quiz at the end of each; at the end you will receive a Certificate of Completion. Many professors require you to take this tutorial--and once you finish it, you can save your certificate to reprint as often as necessary.
We can hold special classes at the request of at least 5 students. If you would like to arrange a special class, or you think your course would benefit from some in-class library instruction, please ask your professor to contact the librarian responsible for your faculty to set up some sessions.
Programs in Human Kinetics
More Help
In the library: The Library User Assistance Desk to your immediate left as you enter the library is a good place to start.
By email: Email the librarian responsible for your faculty for a reply during regular working hours.
Research consultations: Book a research consultation with the librarian responsible for your faculty by Zoom or phone.
By chat: With our "Ask the Library" service. For more information, see About Ask a Librarian.
For Distance Education students: Telephone: 1-800-661-1058, ext. 2 or email: bibdesmaraislib@laurentian.ca
Get Books and Theses
Searching the Catalogue
The catalogue is your primary tool for finding books in the J.N. Desmarais Library. You can also use the catalogue to find other materials, including government publications and journals (including individual articles).
You can search the catalogue by:
- Title
- Author/Creator
- Subject
- Call Number
When you know the book you are searching for, pick Title or Author; when you are searching for a topic, start with Keyword unless you know the exact Subject heading describing your topic.
More on searching the Catalogue is available in Module 5 of the Research Skills Tutorial in D2L.
Electronic books
Electronic books (ebooks) pertaining to your research interest can be found in two different places:
- Some may be located by using the library’s catalogue and selecting "Books & eBooks" as the "Material Type" and then further filtering your results by "Available online".
- Ebooks can also be located by searching in e-book collections. Some recommended ebook collections include:
- Scholars Portal Ebooks (over 250,000 ebooks in multiple subject areas. Select Full Text Only to find only those ebooks with full text)
- Ebook Central (close to 40,000 ebooks in multiple subject areas)
WorldCat
Theses
In addition to books, you may wish to search for book-length Master's theses or Ph.D dissertations.
Best bet: Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest).
If you are also looking for recent theses or dissertations produced by Laurentian graduates, check out our Research Repository - LUZONE. Note that since 2013, before graduation all Masters and Doctoral candidates MUST deposit their theses or dissertations in this repository.
Get Articles
Tips on Getting Articles
The databases to the right provide references to many scholarly journal articles and papers.
- Start off with keyword searches expressing your topic. Keyword searching crosses all fields.
- Use Search Operators such as "OR" and "AND" to expand or reduce your results.
- Review those items that look relevant, then, exploit the details within those entries to help lead you to other relevant articles.
- Pay attention to the subject headings (often called "descriptors") to see how the database describes your topic and use them to find related articles.
- Find other papers written by the same author; these will typically be on similar subjects.
- Follow citation trails: other articles that have cited this article will probably be on a related subject and will include citations to other articles of interest.
Getting articles from a citation
Given a citation for an article, you can often find that article by pasting the citation into the search box of Google Scholar. If you find a hit in the results, clicking the title of the article will lead to a copy that Laurentian has licensed - or links will be offered to versions of the article that are openly available on the Web.
Getting articles
In any database, when you see an article that interests you, click on the article title and within the record you will either see a link to full text HTML or PDF, or:
When you click on that icon, you will arrive at a menu which will lead to an electronic copy of the article you want from one of Laurentian's other resources, or, if not available electronically, to Laurentian's catalogue which will allow you to check if the article is available in print, and if not, to a final link which allows you to order the item through a RACER (interlibrary loan) request.
Peer Review
Peer Review is the evaluation of creative work by scholars in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work in that field.
In the case of peer reviewed journals, which are usually academic, peer review generally refers to the evaluation of the articles in them prior to publication. For more, check out this definition of peer review.
- To ascertain whether a journal is peer reviewed, consult Ulrichsweb.
Laurentian's Diversity of Research in Health Journal (DRHJ)
Laurentian's Faculty of Health publishes Diversity of Research in Health Journal (DRHJ) annually, based on presentations at the Faculty's annual conference.
Recommended Research Resources
Related Research Resources
Citation Sources
When researching a paper, it is useful to consult the citations used by the author of an article that you find relevant. But that article itself may have been cited by other authors after it was first written. Two sources help you identify such citations:
Get Data and Statistics
Start with This
Ontario Population Health Index of Databases (OPHID) (I) (Edit)
In addition, the data librarians at York University (Toronto) have compiled a thorough guide to various Data and Stats Sources, not only for Canada, but for the United States and other International locations.
E-Data
International, national, and provincial statistical health data are important sources of information for health, allowing for the analysis, evaluation, and development of policies and services.
Statistics Guide
For more information, visit our research guide on Data and Statistics.
Feel free to email data@laurentian.ca for further help in conducting research with data and statistics.
Summary
On February 28, 2012, Dan Scott gave a presentation to the PHED 2216 Research Methods in Human Kinetics course on data and statistics, with a focus on the Census and the Canadian Community Health Survey.
For more information, see the Data and Statistics Research Guide.
Citing Sources and Zotero
Why Cite
We cite sources to acknowledge the work of others, as well as to avoid academic dishonesty or plagiarism.
The University of Toronto has made available a comprehensive set of guidelines on How NOT to Plagiarize .which deserves to be read by every student.
Citation Styles in Human Kinetics Programs
At Laurentian, professors will specify the citation style to be used. In HK it is normally APA. To learn more about the APA and other citation styles, consult Laurentian's guide to citation styles.
Zotero
is a free, web-based citation manager that allows you to:
- Directly import references from article databases, the library catalogue, e-book collections, etc.
- Manage and organize your references.
- Create a bibliography.
- Share your references with others
- Add in-text citation and a bibliography directly into your assignment
Connect to Zotero
Getting started with Zotero:
- Follow
this Guide specially prepared for Laurentian Users by Ashley Thomson (Sept. 2020)
- Contact the librarian supporting your faculty.
- Sign up for library workshops when available.
- View Quick Start Guide (video) or Tutorials (videos)
- Consult one of Zotero's own User Guides or McMaster University's Quick Start Guide or the Zotero Guide by Ontario Tech University