The research for this project will be easily done using subscription databases.  When I did the project (yes, I give things a test run) I used the Gale Health databases, found here.  Use the left navigation and scroll down to the Health tab.  The basic search bar will search the Nursing and Physical Therapy databases at the same time.  Handy, right?  You will have to do a seperate search by clicking on the Health & Wellness Resource Center.  If you are doing this at home, the password is: westshore

 

I also used the PowerLibrary Health & Sciences databases found here.  Specifically, I checked Consumer Health, Academic OneFile and General One File.

 

Another good source for this information is Google Scholar--it's like regular Google's smarter cousin.  Find it by using this address: scholar.google.com

 

A note about searching.  My first search was ice and athletes.  That got really "meh" results.  I noticed that some of the articles referred to cold therapy or cryrotherapy. First hint, use synonyms.  

 

Second hint, use quotes around phrases you want to keep together like "cold therapy" Otherwise, the database will bring back results about the cold, therapists or even therapists who practice in the cold.  Quotation marks keep terms together.

 

Third hint, use the Boolean Operators and, or, not.   My best searches were the ones where I used "cold therapy" and athletes.  The and tells the databases you want both those terms to appear in the results.

 

Not tells the database you want to exclude results.  I searched "cold therapy" and got lots of results about horses.  In that case, I would want to search "cold therapy" not horses. 

 

If you're feeling dangerous, you can try an or search. It would look something like this "cold therapy" or cryrotherapy or ice and athletes.  That tells the database you will accept results with the terms "cold therapy, ice  or cryroptherapy along with athletes.  But that's a whole other class...

 

DATES--check the publication dates of the articles your are using.  It is especially important to use current sources when working with any health or science topics.

 

CITATIONS--give credit where credit is due.  All of the sources listed above will provide you with citations that you can cut and paste into a Google doc.  Use APA citations.  Google Scholar also provides citations.  Those are found on the results list underneath the article title, noted with a quotation symbol.