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Physical Therapy: Articles

A research guide for IRSC's Physical Therapist Assistant students and information for clinical faculty for the PTA program on how to access the libraries' resources.

Selecting Databases for Physical Therapy Research

Physical Therapy journals are scattered throughout the IRSC Libraries' databases. Once you've logged in, view the databases by subject and click on "Health and Medicine." You may find PT articles in any of these databases. All of these databases contain articles from many different types of medical journals, but some also contain chapters from medical reference books and other general reference texts. Your librarians can save you time by recommending databases based on your specific information need. Just get in touch with us for a consult!

Database Login for Students

To log in to the databases, you will use the same Rivermail e-mail address and password you set up to log into MyPioneerPortal. First-time users of MyPioneerPortal can create their password by following the instructions you receive in your activation email. To reset your password, select "Need help signing in." The librarians cannot reset MyPioneerPortal passwords, if you need additional assistance visit the tutorial on MyPioneerPortal. 

MyPioneerPortal Login

How to Log in to Databases

Scholarly versus Popular

Scholarly articles are:

in-depth |  written by experts   validated with technical language, abstracts, literature reviews, methodologies, tables, graphs, and conclusions |  reviewed by experts | given a bibliography

Popular articles are:

brief overviews of topics |  written by journalists |  easily read by most people |  illustrated with colorful photographs or pictures reviewed by editors | not given a bibliography