LibGuides: Occupational Therapy Assistant: Locate Articles

OTSeeker

OTseeker
OTseeker is a database that contains abstracts of systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials relevant to occupational therapy. Trials have been critically appraised and rated to assist you to evaluate their validity and interpretability. These ratings will help you to judge the quality and usefulness of trials for informing clinical interventions.
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OTseeker has been developed and maintained with generous funding from the Motor Accidents Authority of New South Wales, OT-Australia, The Occupational Therapists Board of Queensland, The College of Occupational Therapists (UK) and the Canadian Occupational Therapy Association. Infrastructure has been provided from the University of Queensland, The University of Sydney, and University of Western Sydney.

Magazines vs Trade Journals vs Scholarly Journals

Here's what to look for:

CRITERIA	POPULAR MAGAZINE	TRADE JOURNAL	SCHOLARLY JOURNAL

Content	Secondary discussion of someone else's research; may include personal narrative or opinion; general information, purpose is to entertain or inform.	Current news, trends and products in a specific industry; practical information for professionals working in the field or industry.	In-depth, primary account of original findings written by the researcher(s); very specific information, with the goal of scholarly communication.
Author	Author is frequently a journalist paid to write articles, may or may not have subject expertise.	Author is usually a professional in the field, sometimes a journalist with subject expertise.	Author's credentials are provided; usually a scholar or specialist with subject expertise.
Audience	General public; the interested non-specialist.	Professionals in the field; the interested non-specialist.	Scholars, researchers, and students.
Language	Vocabulary in general usage; easily understandable to most readers.	Specialized terminology or jargon of the field, but not as technical as a scholarly journal.	Specialized terminology or jargon of the field; requires expertise in subject area.
Graphics	Graphs, charts and tables; lots of glossy advertisements and photographs.	Photographs; some graphics and charts; advertisements targeted to professionals in the field.	Graphs, charts, and tables; very few advertisements and photographs.
Layout & Organization	Informal; may include non-standard formatting. May not present supporting evidence or a conclusion.	Informal; articles organized like a journal or a newsletter. Evidence drawn from personal experience or common knowledge.	Structured; includes the article abstract, goals and objectives, methodology, results (evidence), discussion, conclusion, and bibliography.
Accountability	Articles are evaluated by editorial staff, not experts in the field; edited for format and style.	Articles are evaluated by editorial staff who may be experts in the field, not peer-reviewed; edited for format and style*.	Articles are evaluated by peer-reviewers* or referees who are experts in the field; edited for content, format, and style.
References	Rare. Little, if any, information about source materials is given.	Occasional brief bibliographies, but not required.	Required. Quotes and facts are verifiable.
Paging	Each issue begins with page 1.	Each issue generally begins with page 1.	Page numbers are generally consecutive throughout the volume.

Printer-Friendly PDF of Magazines, Trade, and Scholarly Journals Chart

ProQuest Central

Questions about how to use ProQuest? Take a look at these Helpful Videos.

Best Database for OTA Research

ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Explore articles on scientific, technical, and medical research.
CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
Database of nursing and allied health journals with additional materials that include nursing dissertations, conference proceedings, evidence-based care sheets, audiovisuals, and continuing education modules.

PubMed Central

PubMed Central is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)

PubMed Central offers very sophisticated searching options, but these can be intimidating to new users. Read PubMed Help first.

DOAJ : Directory of Open Access Journals

SEARCH DOAJ
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Definitions

Open Access Journal: We define open access journals as journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. From the BOAI definition [1] of "open access", we support the rights of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory.

Quality Control: The journal must exercise peer-review or editorial quality control to be included.

Research Journal: Journals that report primary results of research or overviews of research results to a scholarly community.

Periodical: A serial appearing, or intending to appear, indefinitely at regular intervals and generally more frequently than annually, each issue of which is numbered or dated consecutively and normally contains separate articles, stories, or other writings.

Selection Criteria Coverage: •Subject: all scientific and scholarly subjects are covered •Types of resource: scientific and scholarly periodicals that publish research or review papers in full text. •Acceptable sources: academic, government, commercial, non-profit private sources are all acceptable. •Level: the target group for included journals should primarily be researchers. •Content: a substantive part of the journal should consist of research papers. All content should be available in full text. •All languages

Access: •All content freely available. •Registration: Free user registration online is acceptable. •Open Access without delay (e.g. no embargo period). Quality: For a journal to be included it should exercise quality control on submitted papers through an editor, editorial board and/or a peer-review system.

Aims & Scope

The aim of the DOAJ is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals, thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The DOAJ aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. In short, the DOAJ aims to be the one-stop shop for users of open access journals.

Tips for Database Searching

• Keep your initial search simple—set the limit for “Full Text” right away, but save other limits (such as date ranges, scholarly, peer-reviewed, etc.) until you see the results list.

• Look for common database tools (suggested subject headings, abstracts, citation help, emailing and save options) on the edges of the page, often in a color bar above the search boxes or in a separate frame on the right or left of your results list.

• Use the right Boolean operator--usually AND--to link two search terms. Using OR often results in a large number of unrelated (and less useful) results. Using AND assures that both of your search terms will appear in the same document.

Want more information about Boolean searching?

Boolean Tutorial - Beginner

Boolean Tutorial - Advanced