HCSA 202
Finding Medical-Legal Journal Articles
Avoid plagiarism by properly citing your sources. Please go to the Citations webpage to learn how.
Find Articles
To find medical-legal information and other medical research articles, look in FLITE databases. If you are doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on using your MyFSU username and password. Click here for information on off-campus database access.
Remember, for most research topics, it is a good idea to start off by getting background information from reference books, such as encyclopedias. The electronic medical library Stat!Ref that searches the contents of many medical reference books is a great place to start searching for MOST health sciences topics (maybe not legal issues though). Also, check out the new collection of online encyclopedias available through the Electronic Reference Resources webpage. Of particular interest to HCSA, the Encyclopedia of Health Care Management is available online.
CINAHL (Simply e-mail yourself citations in APA format, but be sure to double check them)
The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) currently gathers information from more than 1800 journals. Use the CINAHL Headings tab to get more subject-specific information on various topics. When you have found your subject heading, you may click on it to break your topic down by subdivision. Click on the Update Results link to the right of the results to add multiple limits such as peer-reviewed or publication date limits, and click on the recommended subjects to the left of your results to narrow your topic by subject. If the full text of the article is not available in the database, click on the Find It link to determine how the article is available. For an example, see the Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles link below.
General OneFile (Simply e-mail yourself citations in APA format, but be sure to double check them)
This is a general database that will be useful for searching many subject areas. For General OneFile, the default search is a subject guide search. In the subject guide search you can only search one term at a time. If you would like to refine your search or are having difficulties finding the proper subject term, switch to the Basic Search or Advanced Search and perform a keyword search, then select a pertinent article to find the proper subject heading. Also use the Basic Search or Advanced Search if combining search terms. In the Advanced Search you can limit your articles to particular journals, full-text, peer-reviewed, etc. If the full text of the article is not available in the database, click on the Find It link to determine how the article is available. For an example, see the Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles link below.
Also try Academic Onefile.
PubMed (E-mail yourself citations using the Send To box. They will come in NLM style, and you'll need to reformat them to APA style)
This is the largest biomedical database, with over 18 million citations. Try to use specific keywords rather than broad keywords to obtain information pertinent to your topic. If retrieving an overwhelming number of articles, use various options to limit your search that were discussed in class. These options for limiting your search include:
- Select the related articles link when you find an article that is on topic
- Click on the Review tab to only see review articles
- Select the Limits tab and for Type of Article select Legal Cases
- Select the Limits tab and under Default Tag select Title so that your search terms are only being searched in the title
Legal Cases or Legislation are other helpful limits found under the Type of Article limits heading.
In order to link out to the full text of articles through PubMed: 1) click into the full record 2) click on the Find It link to try to access the full text. For an example, see the Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles link below.Click here for a PubMed Tutorial.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (E-mail yourself citations, and then reformat them in APA style)
Using this database, you may wish to switch from the General search tab to the Legal search tab. Information in this database is available full-text online.
Westlaw Campus (E-mail yourself citations, and then reformat them in APA style)
After agreeing to the terms of use, switch from the News & Business search tab to the Law search tab. You will have to select what resources you want to search. Focus your search in Journals and Law Reviews to find articles for your paper.
Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles
In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.
Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire.
Sample Article Link-Out:
Evaluating your Articles
Before requesting articles from interlibrary loan, please review the abstract and make sure that the article is on-topic. Also, please insure that the article is in a language that you speak, as some databases, such as PubMed index many non-English articles that have abstracts written in English. After you have evaluated the topical coverage and language of the article, please do not hesitate to request it through interlibrary loan if it is not available on campus.
Other Useful Links
Find Articles in Databases:
Choose your topic area, and proceed from there.
Find Journals:
Look for journals by doing title, keyword, or subject searches.
Find library materials in the Online Catalog:
Look for books, videos, and other library holdings.
APA Citation Style Guide:
Learn basics about APA style, a prevalent citation format in the medical field.
Northern Michigan University's APA Style Guide: This is an excellent APA guide. For Allied Health Specific examples, including how to cite books from Stat!Ref, click here.
RefBase: Use this tool discussed in class to format your citations in a fraction of the time it takes to format citations by typing them in individually.
Tutorials Webpage: Need help using RefBase? Check out the RefBase tutorials on this webpage.
Need Help? 
Make an appointment for a research consultation with a librarian - one-on-one personal library help for any course. Or, don't forget that you can use Chat (instant message), Email Ali, come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time, or give the Oval Information Desk a call at (231) 591-3602.
Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315
Last update: September 16, 2009