Research Toolkit

Resources, tips, and guidelines to help you through the research process.

Finding information

• Library research checklist
  Helpful hints for starting a library research project.

• Search strategy checklist and tips
  Helpful tips on how to develop a literature search strategy.

• Boolean operators: a cheat sheet
  Boolean logic (named after mathematician George Boole) is a system of logic to designed to yield optimal search results. The Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT, help you construct a logical search. Boolean operators act on sets — groups of records containing a particular word or concept.

• Literature Searching
  Overview and tips on how to conduct a literature search.

• Health statistics and data sources
  Health related statistics and data sources are increasingly available on the Internet. They can be found already neatly packaged, or as raw data sets. The most reliable data comes from governmental sources or health-care professional organizations.

Evaluating information

• Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in the health sciences
  Understand what are considered primary, secondary and tertiary sources.

• Scholarly vs. popular journals or magazines
  How to determine what are scholarly journals vs trade or popular magazines.

• Identifying peer-reviewed journals
  A “peer-reviewed” or “refereed” journal is one in which the articles it contains have been examined by people with credentials in the article’s field of study before it is published.

• Evaluating web resources
  When searching for information on the Internet, it is important to be aware of the quality of the information being presented to you. Keep in mind that anyone can host a web site. To be sure that the information you are looking at is credible and of value.

• Conducting research through an anti-racism lens
  This guide is for students, staff, and faculty who are incorporating an anti-racist lens at all stages of the research life cycle.

• Understanding research study designs
  Covers case studies, randomized control trials, systematic reviews and meta-analysis.

• Qualitative studies
  Overview of what is a qualitative study and how to recognize, find and critically appraise.

Writing and publishing

• Citing sources
  Citations are brief notations in the body of a research paper that point to a source in the bibliography or references cited section.

• Structure of a research paper
  Reports of research studies usually follow the IMRAD format. IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results, [and] Discussion) is a mnemonic for the major components of a scientific paper. These elements are included in the overall structure of a research paper.

• Top reasons for non-acceptance of scientific articles
  Avoid these mistakes when preparing an article for publication.

• Annotated bibliographies
  Guide on how to create an annotated bibliography.

• Writing guides, style manuals, and the publication process in the biological and health sciences
  Style manuals, citation guides as well as information on public access policies, copyright and plagiarism.

• Choosing a research topic
• What does it mean to be a scholarly source?
• How scholarly research gets published in peer-reviewed journals and where to find it all
• Exploring a scholarly research article
• How to read and comprehend scientific research articles
• What are citations?

Research Process in the Health Sciences (35:37 min): Overview of the scientific research process in the health sciences. Follows the seven steps: defining the problem, reviewing the literature, formulating a hypothesis, choosing a research design, collecting data, analyzing the data and interpretation and report writing. Includes a set of additional readings and library resources.

Research Study Designs in the Health Sciences (29:36 min): An overview of research study designs used by health sciences researchers. Covers case reports/case series, case control studies, cohort studies, correlational studies, cross-sectional studies, experimental studies (including randomized control trials), systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Additional readings and library resources are also provided.

DoctorSpeak: Health Literacy and Healthcare Professionals (1:02:44 min): Overview of what is health literacy, why it is important, the risks of low health literacy, how to recognize low health literacy, best practices for communicating with patients and health literacy resources. Attachments include a Medical Jargon Exercise, Plain Language Checklist for Written Materials, Health Literacy Resource List and list of references consults for the presentation.