Health Science and Sports Management

Welcome to the Health Sciences and Sports Management Guide from the Proctor Library at Flagler College. This guide is designed to support you in your research endeavors by providing easy access to relevant library services and resources. 

This guide covers the following key areas:

1. Keywords and Subject Headings for Effective Research
2. Relevant eBooks, Videos, Journals, and Databases
3. APA Citation Guidance

By exploring this guide, you will learn how to:

• Use keywords and subject headings to craft an effective search string
• Recognize relative topics and subject areas in Health Science and Sports Management
• Create APA citations

As always, the Librarians at the Proctor Library are ready to help you! Click HERE to schedule a research consultation.

Here are sample keywords and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Combining Keywords and Subject Headings:

• Use subject headings for more targeted results, especially in library databases.
• Mix keywords and subject headings to ensure a balance between precision and comprehensiveness. For example, ("Nutrition") AND "Health disparities").

Effective Search Strings

1. Start with Key Concepts: Break your research question into primary topics. For example, if your question is "What are the effects of implementing community-based nutrition education programs on reducing obesity rates among adults in underserved populations?" identify main concepts like "public health education" and health disparities.
2. Use Boolean Operators:
   • AND narrows your search by including results that have all terms (e.g., "public health education" AND "health disparities").
   • OR broadens your search by including results that have either term (e.g., "nutrition education" OR "dietary programs").
   • NOT excludes terms you don’t want (e.g., "exercise physiology" NOT "animal studies").
3. Incorporate Synonyms and Variants: Use synonyms or related terms to ensure comprehensive results. Combine these with OR (e.g., "health communication" OR "medical communication").
4. Use Quotation Marks for Phrases: For multi-word terms, like "chronic disease prevention" enclose the phrase in quotes to ensure it is searched as a single unit.
5. Leverage Subject Headings: Library databases often allow searching by subject headings. Use relevant LCSH for targeted searches (e.g., "Health promotion" as an official heading).
6. Refine with Filters: Once you retrieve results, refine them by date, geography, or subject area to ensure relevance.

By strategically combining keywords, subject headings, and Boolean operators, you can create powerful search strings that efficiently locate precise and relevant resources.