When you have a topic and are asked to find information on it, review the literature:
1. Get a handle on your topic! Is it a theory? Created by whom? Facts and background information can be found
If you need health related search engines, try HON site search: http://www.hon.ch/HONsearch/Pro/index.html. This page searches only sites that have met criteria for authority, disclosure, and more as set forth by the Health on the Net Foundation.
Health professionals aren't immune to bad information. When you're reading health information from the Web that has not been published in a journal, remember to ask yourself, "Is this health information good for me?"
2. When you have at least basic knowledge about your topic (such as a theory), find out how that that theory is used by nurses and by scholars and professionals in other disciplines. Journal articles are great sources for this kind of info!
Google Scholar can also help you to find out which articles have been published on your topic. You may need to use Journal Finder to see if the library owns the article you need.
Search the Library Catalog to find books and e-books.
1. Turn your topic into a search! The catalog won't do well searching for sentences such as: What has been written about Madeleine Leininger's nursing theory Culture Care Diversity and Universality?
So break your research question into keywords. Think of related terms for each keyword:
2. Type your search! To search for books using have two different ideas/keywords, use AND: nursing theory AND leininger
Not enough results? You might get more if you try different spellings for one of your keywords. Here's a shortcut: nursing theor$ AND leininger
What if you are told that your instructor has set aside a book for you by "putting it on Reserve?" Click on the Reserves tab in the catalog and search by instructor name (Krowchuk) or by class number (NUR610) to identify what might be available. Books on Reserve are kept at the L-shaped desk on the entry level of the library. Articles that are "on Reserve" are kept in BlackBoard with other documents for your course.
Some books that you might find useful:
Oxford English Dictionary (online) The most comprehensive dictionary of the English language! Includes current and archaic word meanings and examples usage. A nice resource for a concept analysis. Library subscription, log in wiith your Novell user name and password. Also, all 20 volumes of the most recent print edition is kept in the Reference Room at call number PE1625 .O87 1989.
Nursing theories and nursing practice
RT84.5 .N87930 2006 (also available online!)
Perspectives on Nursing Theory
RT84.5 .P47 2009
Nursing Theory: Analysis, Application, Evaluation
RT84.5 .N9 1998
Understanding the work of nurse theorists : a creative beginning
RT84.5 .S53 2004
Nursing Theorists and Their Work
RT84.5 .N9 2006
Theory and Nursing: Integrated Knowledge Development
RT84.5 .C487 1999
American Nursing: A Biographical Dictionary
ref RT34 .A44 1988
Dictionary of American Nursing Biography
RT34 .D53 1988 (kept in the Reference Room)
Nursing theory books are kept in the basement of the main building at call number RT84.5
Web of Science - Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index. Guide to peer reviewed research literature in the sciences and social sciences. Good place to start searching journals outside of nursing, though it does index over 80 nursing journals. It links between articles that cite each other, helping users to explore the literature in several interesting ways.
Want to see which articles tend to use the word "stress" the most often (in article title, abstract, or references list)?
To get an overview of which discipline tends to have the most mentions of the word stress:
This will rank your results by subject of the journal. Please note, you must have LESS THAN 100,000 results in order to use this feature. If you'd like to view articles by journal subject, click the checkbox next to that subject and hit View Records
CINAHL Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health. The first (but not the only) database to use when looking for articles published on nursing topics from 1982 to present. The link above will let you use the EBSCO software to search CINAHL. For more information about CINAHL (including animated examples of searches), review the Nursing and Health Resources Tutorial
In CINAHL the truncation symbol * looks for all words with the same root
1. To search CINAHL for articles on a particular theory
Type the name of the theory (or most of the name):
To find articles on nursing practice or education, add one of those terms to your search with an AND:
You can limit your results to research articles by looking under Refine Search, and setting Publication type to Research.
If you get lots of off-topic results
The easy fix is to add the last name of the theorist to your search
Or you may want to use the guide to CINAHL Headings (in the green bar at the top of the screen)
2. To read the article, look under the citation (title, author, journal name, publication date, volume, issue, pages)
If you have a citation for an article, search Journal Finder to find out if we have a subscription to the journal you need and whether we have the volume and issue of the journal that you need. To launch this search, you can
If we own the journal you need, you will see a linked button that looks like a computer or a book.
Journal Finder Symbols:
a computer
monitor, for electronic journals
a book, for print journals
in the library
a letter, for resources
that will need to be delivered from another institution (by InterLibrary Loan)
a car, for resources in other
libraries you will have to go to
Follow the computer or book icon to see our subscriptions. You will need to be able to look at the subscription information to find out if it includes the volume, issue, and date of the article that you need.
If the library doesn't have a subscription to the journal or doesn't have the volume or issue that you need, you can request it through InterLibrary Loan.
Animated examples of using Journal Finder
Explanation and examples are available in the Publication Manual of the APA 6th ed. (2010). Copies are kept in Jackson Library at the Reference Desk and at the Reserve Desk, under call number BF 76.7 P83.
Lea Leininger
laleinin@uncg.edu
Nursing Librarian
