Nutrition
A Research Guide

This guide will help you start your research on a topic dealing with nutrition for your research paper or presentation. You will find resources from different academic disciplines from medicine to home economics, so make sure to narrow your topic by doing a little pre-research with the library’s reference collection before searching for resources to use for your paper or presentation.

I Reference Books I Searching the Library Catalog I Searching Electronic Resources I
I Print Periodicals I Searching the Internet I Recommended Web Sites I Web Evaluation I
I Citing Your Sources I

Reference Books
Reference books are a good place to start your research. The following list of books will help you narrow down your topic, find additional search terms, and get a general overview of your topic before you being your research. This is not an exhaustive list, so be sure to look at the books shelved near these titles for additional books.

Medicine

• Nutrition and Well-Being A to Z – REF RA784.N838 2004
• Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine – REF RC41.G35 1999
• Merck Manual of Medical Information – REF RC81.M535 2003
• Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy – REF RC55.M4 2006 
• Nutrition and Diet Therapy – REF 216.C36 1999
• Nutritional Influences on Illness: A Sourcebook of Clinical Research – REF RM217.2 .W47 1993

Home Economics

• Encyclopedia of Food Science, Food Technology, and Nutrition – REF TX349.E47 1993
• The Complete Book of Food: A Nutritional, Medical & Culinary Guide – REF TX353.R525 1987
• Dictionary of Food Ingredients – REF TX551.I26 2001
• A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives – REF TX553.A3 W55 1999

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Searching the Library Catalog
Once you have narrowed down your topic, search the library catalog for additional resources on your specific topic. Here are some search tips and strategies:

Here are some subject headings you may use for a simple subject search (you will then want to scroll down the index for additional related headings):

Diet therapy
Eating disorders 
Minerals in human nutrition
Nutrition 
Nutritionally induced diseases
Vitamins in human nutrition

To conduct a simple keyword search, try some of the following search terms (remember to put phrases in quotation marks & note that doing a keyword search will produce broader results than the subject search):

“Diet therapy” 
“Eating disorder?”

To conduct an advanced search (leave search field at keyword anywhere and search operator with AND selected), try the following search combinations:

obesity AND nutrition
vegetarian? AND vegan?
nutrition AND health

Browsing the library shelves is another good way to find additional resources. Look at the titles in the following sections for relevant sources on nutrition. Each section will look at the topic from a different approach or academic discipline.

QP 141 (Physiology)
RA 784 (Public Aspects of Medicine)
RM 216-217 (Therapeutics – Pharmacology)
TX 353 (Home Economics)

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Searching Electronic Resources for Articles and eBooks
You will find magazine, journal, and newspaper articles; essays; and full-text ebooks on nutrition topics in most of the databases at OCC Library. This is a list of the most pertinent sources. Go to the library’s Web page and click on the link to get the full list of databases at OCC Library.

	Off-Campus Access: Log in to MyOCC or Blackboard to access these resources off-campus. If you are having problems logging in, please go the MyOCC Username & Password page or call MyOCC Technical Support at (714) 432-5072.

CQ Researcher
This weekly publication provides in-depth, non-bias analysis of the most current major and controversial issues of the day with complete summaries, all the pros and cons, bibliographies and more.

Health Reference Center Academic
Use this database to find articles on: Fitness, Pregnancy, Medicine, Nutrition, Diseases, Public Health, Occupational Health and Safety, Alcohol and Drug abuse, HMOs, Prescription Drugs, etc. The material contained in this database is intended for informational purposes only.

Health and Wellness Resource Center
Use this Resource Center to find magazines, journals, newspapers, definitions, directories, videos, & reference information on: Medicine, Nutrition, Diseases, Public Health, Pregnancy, Prescription Drugs, etc. Included are links to diet, cancer, health assessment sites & government databases. Easily access 700+ videos from Healthology, Inc.'s consumer health video library. Spanish-language videos are available. The material contained in this Resource Center is intended for informational purposes only.

Opposing Viewpoints
Access viewpoint essays, reference documents, statistics, magazine & newspaper articles, images, primary documents, and Web sites on your topic. This database also provides a list of controversial topics that you can browse for ideas (see “Nutrition” or “Eating Disorders” for example).

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Periodicals in Print at OCC Library
The following periodicals are found in the Periodicals section of the library and are filed in alphabetical order by title.

Food and Nutrition News
Nutrition
Nutrition Today

Searching the Internet for Web Sites
The following Web sites will help you find reliable Internet resources that are of good authority for your research paper or presentation.

Librarians’ Index to the Internet - This site was developed by librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to Internet resources. The Index is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 14,000 Internet resources that have been selected and evaluated by librarians.

DMOZ Open Directory Project – This human-edited directory of the Web breaks the topics into sub-topics and also provides “see also” references. Try the pathway: Health > Nutrition.

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Recommended Web Sites

Food and Nutrition Information Center
This site is from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Library. Search or browse the site by subject (e.g., diet & disease, weight & obesity, food safety, and food labeling).

MedlinePlus: Nutrition
A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine & the National Institute of Health, this Web page provides links to related government issued news, articles, and resources.

Nutrition.gov: Smart Nutrition Starts Here
This is a U.S. federal guide that you can search or browse by subject (e.g., what’s in food, weight management, nutrition & health issues, and dietary supplements).

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Web Evaluation

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages
A quick and useful guide to help you evaluate the Web pages you find for accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. From Jim Kapoun’s article "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction” originally published in the July/August 1998 issue of C&RL News on pages 522-523.

Citing Your Sources

Citation Styles – A guide to citing Internet sources using the MLA, APA, and other formats. From Bedford/St. Martin’s site Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.

Guides to Cite It! – Provides style guides for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and others. From the University of Georgia Libraries.

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(jk 4/07)