LibGuides: Sport: Journal databases

What are journals and journal databases?

Journal articles are a key source of information.

When someone carries out a piece of research, a journal article is usually the format they will choose to publish their research. So, if you want to keep up with the latest research, you need to read journal articles. They also contain the high level of technical detail and nuance you will need for professional work.

Most journal articles are available online. You can search for journal articles on Library Search like books. But there are also dedicated databases which specialise in particular subject areas: because these concentrate on a single subject, they can offer more targeted, sophisticated search tools than a general purpose search engine or database, giving you superior search results.

SportsDiscus is the best place to begin any sports related search!

SPORTDiscus This link opens in a new window
SPORTDiscus is a comprehensive source of literature in the sport, sports medicine, fitness and related disciplines. It has over 1,500,000 records, including journal articles, books, dissertations and theses. In some cases, coverage goes back to 1939. Subjects covered include sport physiology, sport psychology, nutrition, kinesiology, physical education and recreation.
It has over 1,500,000 records, including journal articles, books, dissertations and theses. In some cases coverage goes back to 1939.
An increasing percentage of the material is full text.
Cross search available with all EBSCO databases, select Choose Databases and tick those you wish to add to your search.

General purpose databases

These databases cover a wide range of subjects, of which sport-related material comprises just a small fraction.

However, these databases are also absolutely huge, so that 'small fraction' can still be a vast number of relevant articles! Several of these databases also include advanced search features, which give you new ways of finding articles.

Proquest Central This link opens in a new window
A multi-disciplinary full text database covering business, health and medical, social sciences, education , science and technology, including core titles in the performing and visual arts, history, religion, philosophy, and language and literature. It includes both scholarly journals as well as market research and industry reports, working papers and full-text dissertations.
SCOPUS This link opens in a new window
Scopus is a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary abstract and database curated by subject matter experts. Scopus is also a citation index, which means that the records in the database contain information on citations made in that publication and it links that information so you can identify which publications have cited that one, and how many times a publication has been cited.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science provides access to a collection of databases. The default search is of the Web of Science Core Collection, which includes the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index and Emerging Sources Citation Index. This enables you to search scholarly journals, books and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities and navigate the citation network.
By clicking on the drop-down menu next to ‘Search in:’ you can choose to search other databases: BIOSIS Citation Index (1969-2008), KCI-Korean Journal Database, Medline, Preprint Citation Index and SciELO Citation Index.
Dimensions This link opens in a new window
You will need to register for free to use this service
A very large multi-disciplinary database which enables you to search millions of articles, proceedings, preprints, books and chapters. Full text searching is possible for 70% of the publications. Dimensions can also be used to gain insight into research impact and attention through citations and altmetrics and to see analytical views of your search results. Please note that only the publications search is available.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a search engine that covers scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. You can use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, as well as scholarly articles available from across the web.
Be aware that Google scholar will find results from sources that SHU does not subscribe to so you may not automatically be able to get full text online. You can take advantage of the SHU subscriptions by going to Scholar Preferences and adding Sheffield Hallam University when prompted for a library name. This will add a SHU Links link to your Google Scholar searches which will identify what you can get via SHU subscriptions. However, we still advise that you access Google Scholar via Library Gateway as this will give you access to the full range of subscribed resources.

What are the key databases for exercise science and coaching?

MEDLINE (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and pre-clinical sciences.
alternative link
Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 4,800 current biomedical journals. Included are citations from Index Medicus, International Nursing Index, Index to Dental Literature, HISTLINE, SPACELINE, PREMEDLINE, AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, and HealthSTAR.
Cross search available with all EBSCO databases, select Choose Databases and tick those you wish to add to your search.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed is the key life sciences database covering from the 1950s to the present day
PubMed is a search tool to access citations, abstracts and links to full-text journals at web sites of participating publishers. Including over 15 million citations from journals and covers 4,800 biomedical science journals.
APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
This database is published by the American Psychological Associations and provides comprehensive indexing and abstracts of the international psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. Documents indexed include journals, articles, books, dissertations and more. 90% of the 3,000+ titles indexed in APA PsycINFO® are peer-reviewed.

Coverage: 1806 - current

What are the key databases for sport psychology and psychological tests?

APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
This database is published by the American Psychological Associations and provides comprehensive indexing and abstracts of the international psychological literature from the 1800s to the present. Documents indexed include journals, articles, books, dissertations and more. 90% of the 3,000+ titles indexed in APA PsycINFO® are peer-reviewed.

Coverage: 1806 - current
APA PsycTests This link opens in a new window
This database is published by the American Psychological Association and provides bibliographic, plus full text and multimedia of psychological tests from the early 1900s to the present. Test records include descriptive summaries of the test and its development and administration, mostly drawn from articles in peer-reviewed journals or books, with downloadable tests. 75% of the test records contain the actual test or test items.

What are the key databases for physical education and school sport?

British Education Index This link opens in a new window
Information on research, policy and practice in education and training in the UK. Particular strengths include aspects of educational policy and administration, evaluation and assessment, technology and special educational needs.
Content is included from over 250 English language periodicals published in the British Isles and in certain internationally published periodicals. Subject coverage includes : Cognitive development,Computer assisted learning, Curriculum, Educational policy,Educational psychology,Educational technology, Language acquisition, Training,Management in education, Multicultural education, Physical education, Science education, Special educational needs, Teacher education, Vocational education.
Sports Medicine and Education Index This link opens in a new window
Index of peer review journals, conference proceedings, articles from the popular press and many other publications. Coverage includes, health, coaching, dance, sport sociology and sport medicine.
The material is updated monthly and the coverage is from 1970.

What are the key databases for sport business management?

Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
Full text coverage of trade and academic journals covering all business disciplines, including marketing, management, accounting, finance and economics. Also includes industry and company profiles and SWOT analyses, country economic data and market research.
Emerald Insight This link opens in a new window
Access to subscribed journals and eBooks published by Emerald. Subject coverage: business, management, marketing, retailing, economics, education, engineering and library and information science.

What are the key databases for sport studies?

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
A database of the international literature in sociology and the social and behavioural sciences, it provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,809 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.
Records added since 1963 contain in-depth and non-evaluative abstracts of journal articles. Many records from key journals in sociology, published since 2001, also include the references cited in the bibliography of the source article. Each individual reference may also have links to an abstract and/or to other papers that cite that reference; these links increase the possibility of finding more potentially relevant articles. These references are linked both within Sociological Abstracts and across other social science databases available on Proquest.
SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new window
Search SAGE journal articles from 1879 onward. Sheffield Hallam University has access to only SOME of these journals.

Database Searching Tips

Split your assignment into keywords:

To find more relevant and fewer results, think about your keywords. Make sure they accurately describe what you are looking for, and add more keywords to make your search more specific. For example for the assignment title "What role can sport play in the regeneration of a city?" keywords would be sport - regeneration - city

Think of alternative keywords:

For example, 'young' could also be referred to as 'youth' or 'adolescent'. Or, think of the bigger picture. For example, instead of searching for 'boys' or 'girls', try searching for 'gender'. For the example above an alternative for regeneration might be 'development or renewal.'

Search for phrases in "double quotation marks":

For example, "barriers to participation". This will search for the phrase as a whole, instead of the individual words.

What to do if a journal article is not available in the Library

If we don't have a journal article or conference proceeding in stock, we can ask another library to email a copy to you via our Document Supply Service.

While it may not be possible to get absolutely everything, the vast majority of articles can be obtained this way.

Document Supply Services