CSUN WordmarkOviatt Library

HSCI345

Dr. Gretta Madjzoob

Library Research Resources for Public Health Issues

Getting Started

Accessing Library Resources from Off Campus

As a CSUN student you can access most databases from off campus, anywhere around the world. You just need to make sure you have your PORTAL username and password. When you click on a database from off campus, you'll see the following screen. When you've entered the ID and password information, you'll be redirected to the database.
 

Books

Periodical Articles

Search the library's databases to find journal, magazine and newspaper articles.

News, Current Events, General Information

Scholarly Journals and Scientific Information

  • CINAHL Plus -- scholarly journals from nursing, medicine, and consumer health
  • GoogleScholar -- scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and reports across many disciplines
  • PubMed -- scholarly and research journal articles in biochemistry, medicine and related fields
  • ScienceDirect -- search full-text journals published by Elsevier
  • Wiley Online Library -- search full-text journals published by Wiley
  • CQ Researcher  -- explores in depth  hot issues in the news
  • Information Sources: Health Sciences -- SimpleSearch allows you to search up to 10 databases, and offers you an electronic shelf to save records from diverse databases.

Government Publications

           is http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/

http://www.ncsl.org/about-us/ncslservice/state-legislative-websites-directory.aspx

Citing Sources

Finding Books and Journals in the Library Catalog

Use the Catalog search box located in the center of the library's homepage to search for books. To search for books on your topic, use the default Keyword search option and enter your search terms in the For box.

If you have a specific book or author in mind, before you enter your search terms in the For box, change the Search type from Keyword to:

  • Title - to look for a specific book.
  • Author - to look for books by a specific author.

 To look for ebooks only, select Ebooks in the Limits field.

Finding Articles in Magazines, Journals, and Newspapers

Pick a database recommended for your subject from Find Articles by Subject and then search using keywords.

To locate the full text of an article:

  • If full-text is available in the database, click on the link to full text (HTML or PDF).
  • If full-text isn't available in the database, click the Find Text button to see if we have access to the article in another database or in print in the library
  • If no Find Text button is available or you didn't find the article through our databases, search for the magazine or journal title using the Journals tab in the library catalog.
  • If the full text isn't available through the Library, you can request an Interlibrary Loan for the article(s) that you need. However, you must allow about two weeks for this!

 

How to Cite Articles

  • Determine which citation style to use; the two most commonly used at CSUN are MLA and APA. If your professor didn't specify, pick one and use it consistently.
  • Check the sample style sheets (MLA or APA) to see what information the article citation should contain and how it should be formatted.
  • Be sure to indicate where material you quoted directly or paraphrased came from.

For more information, see Citing Your Sources - Plagiarism.

Scholarly Journals (Peer-reviewed/Referreed)

Image of American Journal of Philology
  • Authors are authorities in their fields.
  • Authors cite their sources in endnotes, footnotes, or bibliographies.
  • Individual issues have little or no advertising.
  • Articles must go through a peer-review or refereed process.
  • Articles are usually reports on scholarly research.
  • Illustrations usually take the form of charts and graphs.
  • Articles use jargon of the discipline.