Kinesiology and Recreation Management: KPER 2350

Note taking strategies

When reading your 10-12 articles, it's important to find a strategy to take and manage notes. No one strategy works for everyone. Consider that you'll need to share notes with your group members, so they will need to be clear enough that everyone can understand each other's work and contribute. It makes sense to choose a strategy as a group. You might choose to use some combination of the following common note taking strategies:

• Save PDFs in your citation manager’s group library and annotate them there where everyone can see them. 
• Use a table or spreadsheet to cover the main themes (eg research question, research method, data collection tools, findings). This 5-minute video shows how to set one up and shows an example. Or, follow this handout with an example from Florida State University.
• Add notes to a shared Word document and colour code them based on themes.

Developing a research question

This handout from the University of Guelph covers how and why to develop a research question.

Some strategies that might be useful in developing your research question include:

• Mind mapping: Once you have selected a topic, it can help to do a mind map. This 3 minute video on mind mapping from the UCLA Library shows how you can use a mind map to zoom in on a specific topic; keep in mind you can also use it to broaden a too-narrow topic. Mind mapping can also help you identify keywords for searching. The Academic Learning Centre has a blank mind mapping template you can print out, free online tools such as Canva can be used for mind mapping, or you can just use a blank piece of paper and a pen. 
• Test searching: As you refine your research question, try a few test searches somewhere like Google Scholar or the library search. This will help you see quickly how much literature is available on your general topic. Keep in mind you should usually expect to use these tools to find 2-3 articles on your topic. See the Literature Searching section for more on this.

Getting started

As you begin thinking about your topic, it can help to begin with broad literature searches to get a sense of how much literature is available on your topic. 

To get started with a broad search, and to find a few articles, start with:

• Library search. This is the search bar on the library homepage, which searches many different databases, as well as the library collection at once. 
• Google Scholar. Although this resource lacks more advanced search functionality, it is great for quick keyword searches and finding a small number of articles. 
  • Because Google Scholar does not connect to library subscriptions, when you use Google Scholar you are more likely to hit a paywall. To address this, Install the Lean Library browser extension. When you hit a paywall for something the library subscribes to, a pop-up will offer to take you to the subscribed version.

Moving into databases

While Google Scholar is great for getting started, it lacks more advanced search functionality like filtering to peer reviewed journals, sorting by year, etc. And the library search can become overwhelming because it simultaneously searches so many databases.

To find more than 2-3 articles on a topic, it can help to use the library databases. Most students will be able to find all they need in one database. I recommend starting in SportDiscus. Choice of database does depend somewhat on your topic. Take a look at the explanations here.

• SportDiscus is a database that will work for almost all KPER 2350 students. Its focus is on scholarly journal articles on sports, fitness, and sports medicine, but also includes a substantial amount of content on physical education and recreation and leisure. This video tutorial provides a quick 2-minute introduction to the database.
• Other more specialized databases might be useful based on your topic:
  • ERIC is an education database, and would be useful for topics which fall under physical education. ERIC is on the same platform as SportDiscus, so they look and work the same way.
  • PsycInfo covers psychological literature, so is useful for research questions including any aspect of mental health. This database can be a little harder to learn to use because it is on the Ovid platform. If you have trouble navigating, this workshop covers Ovid databases.
  • PubMed is a really large database covering health, and although its focus is on medicine, it includes some kinesiology content. It was designed primarily for clinicians, and is the only database on this list that will continue to be available to you throughout your career because it is free. This workshop section shows how to do a quick search in PubMed, and how to problem-solve if it returns irrelevant results.
  • Scopus: Unlike the other databases discussed, Scopus is not specialized based on subject. This makes it useful for multidisciplinary research, but be aware that the larger and more multidisciplinary a database is, the more likely it is to return irrelevant results. The Scopus interface is fairly easy to use, but you can see a demonstration of the search and other functions in this video workshop. When you find a relevant article on Scopus, I recommend using the "cited by" feature to find other articles which include your article of interest in their reference lists. This way you can find more recent related articles.

Advanced searching

As you continue to search, you may find simple keyword searches less effective. Advanced search skills will help, and they apply in all databases:

• Choosing your search terms is arguably the most important part of an effective search. Once you have settled on a research question, identify the words in your question which represent the most important ideas. For example, from the research question "How does climate change impact physical activity?" we can see the most important ideas are "climate change" and "physical activity." We do not search for terms like "impact" or "effect" because they are too vague. Now you can brainstorm synonyms for each term. You might add terms like "exercise" or "sports" to your physical activity concept. How do you enter all of these terms in your database search? See the next 2 video tutorials to find out and see examples.
• Using symbols & quotation marks: This 2-minute video tutorial demonstrates a skill that can be applied in any database.
• Search like a pro: Boolean Operators: The 6-minute section from a workshop (21:10 to 27:39) covers Boolean operators and search symbols. The entire 1-hour workshop provides a useful structured approach to searching databases.
• All databases have a Search History feature. Look for a link called Search History or Advanced Search to find the search history. Note that your search history is only stored for the duration of your visit or until you are timed out of the database. Is it useful when you:
  • experiment with searches and wish to return to a previous version of a search, and
  • want to copy and paste your searches into another document so you can return to them later, or share them with your group.

Managing 10-12 articles, and figuring out how to share them with a group, can be overwhelming. A citation manager like Zotero or Mendeley can help. It is essential that all group members use the same citation manager, so discuss this decision with your group.

Zotero 

1. Download Zotero with the browser connector for your favourite browser. (Chrome or Firefox are recommended).
2. On Zotero’s website, create an account. (Click Log In, then Register for a free account and follow the steps)
3. On Zotero’s website, create a new group. Invite your group members.
4. Open Word to ensure the Zotero plug-in has been installed. If you don’t see it there, open Zotero, open the Edit menu, then choose Preferences; click Cite, Word Processors, and then Install Microsoft Word Add-In. (Note that on Macs, you open the Preferences menu instead of Edit.)

Mendeley

Mendeley is another popular citation manager, which is also free. If someone in your group is already using Mendeley, you might choose to use that one instead. Get started with Mendeley.

Editing references

No citation manager is 100% accurate. Once you are finished your work, you will need to edit the citations and/or references. However, the Word plug-in automatically refreshes the citations as you go, undoing any direct edits you will have made. In order to fix your citations, a) edit the citation information directly in your citation manager, so that it imports correctly; and b) only once you are completely finished and ready to finalize your citations, open the Zotero menu and select Unlink citations. Now you can edit your references. Instructions on how to do this in Mendeley are here under ‘Removing Mendeley Field Codes.’

APA Resources

To check your citations against APA 7th edition rules, check: APA Style and Grammar Guidelines from the APA; Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide; or the UM Libraries APA Handout.

You can also use the APA style guide, which is on course reserve at the Elizabeth Dafoe Library and other locations. While it can look intimidating, you only need to use a few chapters: Chapter 8 covers in-text citations, Chapter 9 covers references, and Chapter 10 provides many examples of references.