Dr. Steele’s NURS 1221 Course

Quick links:
Scholarly versus Popular
Database Searching
Database Searching Tips
Evaluating Websites

Scholarly/academic literature versus popular literature

First, just a simple tip: scholarly/academic/peer-reviewed/referred all mean the same thing.

According to our library glossary, peer-reviewed means “articles reviewed and critiqued by noted experts (”peers”) in the same discipline; sometimes called ‘refereed’”library.uco.edu/sp/glossary/index.html

Thus when you’re taking a look at an article from Time or Scientific American, you’re not looking at scholarly articles.  Instead, you’re looking at something called “popular literature” or news that is written for the general public about scholarly and or scientific studies, etc.

In short–

Peer-reviewed

• Written by a scholar or a researcher
• Written for academia
• Full documentation
• Original or primary research

Popular

• Written for general public
• Written by reporters or free-lance writers
• No or minimal documentation
• No original research- secondary literature

Searching in our databases for articles and biographical information

When you are in need of an scholarly source or even a popular source, you can turn to our library databases (which can be accessed on an off campus with your UCO email username and password).

The Library databases can be found at http://library.uco.edu/databases/

Once on the library databases’ page, you can sort the databases by subject using the upper left-hand corner drop-down box.

Thus, if you were looking for articles about a certain physical condition, you might choose Nursing or Health and Medicine.  If you were searching for mental conditions, you might choose Psychology as your subject… And, if you were researching a Nursing or Medical figure, you might choose Biography as your subject sorter for our biographical databases.

Searching tips in our databases

Some cool things you can do to make your search more specific or to yield more results is to use advanced search operators.

One such operator is OR

OR will increase the number of results retrieved because it is looking for similar terms.

Thus, if you’re searching for steroids, you’re also searching for performance enhancing drugs, etc.

” “ will only search for words right next to each other.  It’s called a phrase search.

If you want to do a search on performance enhancing drugs, you might want to put ” ” around the phrase like so “performance enhancing drugs”.  Otherwise the database will just look for those words separately; not necessarily next to each other.

Yet another trick is the * ending.  This is called the truncation or wildcard ending.

Adding a * to a word like athlet* will search for the following words: athlete, athletes, athletics, atheletic, athletism, etc., etc.

Evaluating websites

Google ain’t all bad and neither is the Internet

You just need to be weary of who is behind your information.

Would you trust a .com for medical advice? A website backed by a racist white supremest group for a biographical sketch of Martin Luther King?

When using Internet sources,

Look to the authority of the page’s author (Who is writing the content, what are their credentials?)

The accuracy of the content being provided (How did they procure their results? etc.)

The objectivity of the content itself

And, finally, the currency (How old is the research?)

For more help, see this website evaluation page put together by the Libraries at the University of Idaho.

Please remember that if you ever need a hand in with research, you can always contact us at the Reference desk via email, phone (405-974-2878), chat, or text!

And, you can always email me personally @ alemon2@uco.edu!

I’ll see you around the library!

Amanda

NURS 4113 — Transition to BSN — Dr. Linda Steele

Finding Scholarly Nursing & Health Articles

Scholarly articles are written for readers who have advanced knowledge of their subject area. They often contain empirical research, are longer, and have a Works Cited list at the end.

Databases for locating a scholarly article:

CINAHL — (Recommended) Comprehensive database for nursing & allied health

Tips:

• Limit search to scholarly/peer-reviewed journals
• Limit Publication Type to Research for articles including an experiment

HealthSource Nursing/Academic — Many full text articles on all aspects of health

Tip: Limit search to scholarly/peer-reviewed journals on the Refine Search tab

Medline — Comprehensive in-depth coverage of materials on all aspects of medicine. Directed to physicians more than nurses or allied health fields.

Tip: Use Medline for more clinical information about a condition.

Other Databases to Consider:

Other databases may have information related to nursing, including these databases:

PsycInfo — Comprehensive database for psychology materials

Tip: Consider checking PsycInfo for information about mental conditions or conditions where mental issues might be a factor, such as post-partum depression.

SocIndex — Comprehensive database for the social sciences

Tip: Consider checking SocIndex when ethnic, economic, or age is a factor in a condition or treatment.

Handouts:

The Basics library guide — Consult to review searching techniques, locations, call numbers, etc.

APA Style Guide – Consult this guide for correct information on citing sources

NURS 1221 — Introduction to Nursing — Dr. Steele

Assignment: Find a popular and scholarly article on a medical condition and critique them

Part I

Scholarly articles are written for readers who have advanced knowledge of their subject area. They often contain empirical research, are longer, and have a Works Cited list at the end.

Databases for locating a scholarly article:

CINAHL — (Recommended) Comprehensive database for nursing & allied health

Tips:

• Limit search to scholarly/peer-reviewed journals
• Limit Publication Type to Research for articles including an experiment

HealthSource Nursing/Academic — Many full text articles on all aspects of health

Tip: Limit search to scholarly/peer-reviewed journals on the Refine Search tab

Medline — Comprehensive in-depth coverage of materials on all aspects of medicine. Directed to physicians more than nurses or allied health fields.

Tip: Use Medline for more clinical information about a condition.

Part II

Popular articles are written for a general audience who know little about the subject area. Popular articles rarely have a Works Cited list.

Database for locating a popular article:

Academic Search Premier — Contains popular and scholarly articles on various subjects

Tip: After searching, click on the “Magazines” tab at the top of the Result List. Clicking on this tab will display only articles from popular magazines such as Time or Good Housekeeping

Other Databases to Consider:

PsycInfo — Comprehensive database for psychology materials

Tip: Consider checking PsycInfo for information about mental conditions or conditions where mental issues might be a factor, such as post-partum depression.

SocIndex — Comprehensive database for the social sciences

Tip: Consider checking SocIndex when ethnic, economic, or age is a factor in a condition or treatment.

Finding a biography about a nurse:

• Check the Nursing Biography Resources handout for useful books located in the library’s Reference Collection with short biographies of nurses
• Use Biography Reference Bank database by typing your nurse’s name into the search box to find short biographies online
• Use the UCO Library Catalog to find a book-length biography to check out from the library. Only very famous nurses will have book-length biographies

Handouts:

The Basics library guide — Consult to review searching techniques, locations, call numbers, etc.

APA Style Guide – Consult this guide for correct information on citing sources

Nursing Biography Resources — Consult for a list of useful books with biographies of nurses

NURS1221 – Introduction to Nursing – Steele

Hello nursing students, Thank you for attending the annoted version of a library instruction class! I hope you found the information useful. Below I have posted additional information as promised.

Tonya L Holt
Reference & Instruction Librarian

Learn more about using UCO Library ResourcesUCO Chambers Library Tutorial This free online tutorial covers information sources, searching strategies, how to find books, how to find articles and citations and plagariasm. If you are interested in learning more, you can use this tutorial at your own pace.APA Style

APA Handout This is copy of the handout given in class.

The OWL at Purdue (Online Writing Lab) This website offers more examples of writing and citing in APA style.

KnightCite This website will help you format your reference page. Be sure to select APA style on the left side. May not be 100% accurate. Always check your APA manual.

Son of Citation Machine This is another website to help you format your reference page. Again, be sure to select APA style on the left side. May not be 100% accurate. Always check your APA manual.