This is Jessica and, like you, the time she can spend on each assessment task is limited.
Like many university students, Jessica originally started university with search techniques that are good for personal searches, but often poor for finding quality material for assessment tasks.
Can you think of any reason why your current searching might not get what you want for university assessment tasks?
Theodore Sturgeon once wrote: "ninety percent of everything is crud".
This same applies to the websites. No matter how good the search engine, it can only find freely available web pages.
Web pages can be out-of date or incorrect, and many websites are designed for marketing.
Many web pages are simplified for public viewing, without the detail you need as a professional.
Professional content often requires payment, and is not available to search engines as Google.
Access to this content is available to students, employees in some fields of work, and members of some professional organisations.
Let's have a look at some of these resources.
Publishing without peer review - articles are submitted, selected and possibly modified by the editor, and published.
Publishing with peer review - submitted articles are reviewed by other experts in the field before being accepted for publication.
For this assignment Jessica needs to find 3 peer-reviewed journal articles.
This is a taste of the process that leads from research > evidence > changes in professional practice.
There are 2 places Jessica can find these articles with relative ease.
QuickSearch can find these articles with relative ease, but might include many articles that are not nursing related.
Click the buttons below for information on finding, reading, and referencing journal articles in QuickSearch
Start in QuickSearch. Type in some search words for a topic and click Search (Library main page) or the magnifying glass search icon (in QuickSearch).
The ANDs are optional, the same as in Google.
The double quotation marks indicate phrases (a "lump" of multiple words found together in that order), also the same as in Google.
Because QuickSearch looks at multiple sources, you might sometimes find the same result repeated from more than one source.
Click on the link for Peer-reviewed Journals (this limits your results to quality journals where articles undergo a review process before being published).
Normally you will want to limit by Creation Date (publication date) as well. For Nursing, a good rule-of-thumb is to only use articles from the last 5 years.
Depending on the number and variation of your results, also limit by Topic
.
To read any article, click on the Full text available link under each article.
One or more providers will be listed. Click on the blue Go button beside any provider.
Different providers will vary in their presentation (in a few of them, you will have to search for the article again).
Most providers will have a PDF link somewhere on the page so you can view the full article (and download or print the article).
After clicking the button above and reading how to search in QuickSearch, try it yourself:
For example, try:
("injection site" OR "site selection") AND subcutaneous AND nursing
(the nursing helps to restrict results to nursing practice rather than pharmaceutical articles)
or try:
("injection site" OR "site selection") AND intramuscular AND nursing
Library QuickSearch - items on the shelves or in the Library's electronic collections and subscriptions
Databases of nursing literature only search nursing journals, so you get fewer irrelevant results (such as architectural "site selection" for new nursing wards).
CINAHL (the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature) is one of the biggest and best databases of nursing literature.
Connect to CINAHL
Search for:
"injection site" OR "site selection"
AND subcutane*
(Using subcutane* will find subcutaneal [admittedly rare] as well as subcutaneous)
(You are searching nursing journals, so adding nursing does not make much difference)
On the left hand side, restrict to Academic Journals (usually peer-reviewed), and maybe the last 5 or so years. You might also use the Major Heading section to restrict to sub-sets of the results, similar to the Topics in QuickSearch.
There are 3 ways to see full-text in CINAHL.
(The Library strongly recommends NOT using Internet Explorer as your web browser)
After clicking the button above and reading how to search in CINAHL, try it yourself:
Connect to CINAHLWhat is your quest? What is your research question?
Type your research question into the box above, then click the Next button (below).
Copy and paste the search strategy into Scopus or your preferred database
The typical scholarly article contains some or all of the following sections (and possibly other sections not mentioned here). Click each one to learn more:
The abstract provides a brief summary of the journal article contents.
Look at the abstract when deciding whether to select and use an article in your search results.
The introduction sets the background and context of the article, and may include the reason the research was undertaken.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
The methodology might not be included in some "discussion articles", but will be included in many research articles.
It gives explicit details of how the research was conducted, and should be sufficient to reproduce the research.
On your first reading you might skip over this section.
It's the research equivalent of a cooking recipe.
Results and analysis (sometimes merged, sometimes separate sections) give a detailed listing of the research results, and details on how the results were summarised and interpreted, and may include statistical details.
On a first reading you might skip over this section.
This section might not be present in some "discussion articles".
This is usually a discussion of the results or other sections of the paper, including potential flaws in the research and implications of the results.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
This usually sums up the outcome or recommendations from the research or discussion. It is the "bottom line" of the article.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
At this point, you might want to consider whether the results and the analysis justifies the conclusion, or whether a strong conclusion is being made from insufficient or uncertain results.
Good-quality journal articles will provide references to either support the ideas and arguments in the article, or to provide a source for the ideas and information used. In-text citations in the other sections will show where each reference has been used. On a first reading you might skip over this section.
If you are using a recent article, the references can be a good source for finding more articles on the same topic.
Is this information relevant to your assignment? Is there likely to be better information?
Is this aimed at the correct audience?
Need to critically appraise a randomized controlled trial or a systematic review?
Critical appraisal checklists can be found at:
Useful ebook:
Useful article on appraising qualitative research articles:
Côté, L. (2005). Appraising qualitative research articles in medicine and medical education.
WARNING: This automated referencing help produce results which are often neither complete nor reliable, and you can lose marks.
Compare the reference generated against the examples in FedCite.
You might have to add initials, correct the case of the article title, add an issue number, add a DOI, and/or other changes.
Stewart, TM & Tran, ZV (2012). Injectable Multiple Sclerosis Medications: A Patient Survey of Factors Associated with Injection-Site Reactions. International Journal Of MS Care, 14(1), 46-9. doi:10.7224/1537-2073-14.1.46
Stewart, T. M., & Tran, Z. V. (2012) Injectable multiple sclerosis medications: A patient survey of factors associated with injection-site reactions. Int J MS Care, 14, 46-53. doi:10.7224/1537-2073-14.1.46
Stewart, Thomas M., and Tran, Zung Vu (2012). Injectable multiple sclerosis medications: A patient survey of factors associated with injection-site reactions. International Journal Of MS Care, 14(1), 46-9.
Stewart, T. M., & Tran, Z. V. (2012). Injectable multiple sclerosis medications: A patient survey of factors associated with injection-site reactions. International Journal Of MS Care, 14(1), 46-49. doi:10.7224/1537-2073-14.1.46
If you are using a Mac, you will usually have to use the Command or Apple key instead of Ctrl.
Ctrl+T - formats the selected paragraphs (or references) with hanging indents
Sorting by A-Z - Word has a feature to sort selected lines or paragraphs (or references) alphabetically. Select your references, and click the A-Z button on the Home tab.
Note: if you don't select your references first, all the paragraphs in your essay will be sorted alphabetically - this is a bad thing, select your references first.
Changing case - Word has a feature (look for the Aa button) to change case, so you can quickly change it to correct sentence case. (Hint: Ctrl+click will select a whole sentence, which often is enough to select a book or journal article title)
Sentence case is what you want, but sometimes going straight to sentence case doesn't work in Word - if this happens, select your article or book title, first change it to lowercase, then change it to sentence case.
You may also need to manually edit it afterwards to start a sub-title with a capital letter.
Ctrl+A - select All
Ctrl+C - Copy
Ctrl+V - paste (think of V = put it here)
For easier selecting : Put your cursor where you want to start selecting, then hold down Shift and use the arrow keys on the keyboard to "drag out" the area of selection.
Annotated bibliography (Study Skills website)