Online Research Guide For Nursing Students

Strong research skills shape your success in nursing school and your whole career. Medicine changes fast, and knowing how to find and read current research keeps your practice current.

Good research is two skills at once: knowing how to search, and knowing how to judge what you find. That second part is what separates evidence you can build patient care on from misleading information that can hurt it. This guide covers the search engines, tools, and evaluation habits that make both easier.

Conducting Research Online

Most of your research can happen online, but not all of it. Your school library may carry print journals that never went digital, and many important books exist only in print. Lean on your school or hospital librarian. If they don't have a specific book or article, they can often get it through interlibrary loan. Work online when the most significant publications on your topic are available there, and reach for print when they aren't.

Refining Your Search Results

The job is filtering out unreliable sources while surfacing what's relevant. Google and other search engines give you tools to do it:

• Filter by domain. Government and education sites rarely sell anything and tend to vet their content carefully. Add site:.gov or site:.edu to your query.
• Filter by site. To search a single trusted source, add site:[website address] plus your search term.
• Filter by date. Click Tools, then pick an option under "Any time" to get current results.
• Filter by exact phrase. Put your query in quotes to narrow a broad topic.
• Exclude terms. Drop a minus sign in front of a word to cut unwanted results, like stethoscope -"for sale".

Beyond open web searches, use the specialty nursing databases listed below.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is built for finding professional literature. It refines by date, shows related articles and other work by the same author, and links to full text when it's available online. If it isn't, you can check whether your library has access.

Scholar also tells you how many papers cite a source. That doesn't prove the source is reliable or current, but it shows its influence. The tool will also generate citations in standard formats, save articles to lists you organize by topic or assignment, and email you new results when you create an alert on a topic.

Online Research Tools

Google dominates, but plenty of other databases are built for academic work, and many offer free or discounted access to students. Your library may provide access too.

General Academic Research Tools

• BASE: The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine spans many disciplines. About 60% of indexed documents are free, and results must meet its standards for relevance and quality.
• CGP: The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications covers current and historical official documents.
• CIA World Factbook: Maps and data on the history, people, geography, government, and economy of countries and entities worldwide.
• ERIC: The Department of Education's database of scholarly articles, papers, and reports, all formally reviewed.
• iSeek Education: Scholarly materials from noncommercial university and government sources, with bookmarking.
• National Archives: A searchable catalog describing most of the National Archives' holdings, including millions of digitized records.
• OCLC OAIster: Open-access resources pooled from libraries, museums, archives, and cultural organizations.
• CORE: Free open-access research collected from sources worldwide.

Nursing Research Tools

• CINAHL Complete: The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, with full-text journals, care sheets, and continuing education modules.
• Medscape: Medical news, research updates, case studies, continuing education, and drug information for clinicians.
• National Institute of Nursing Research: Part of the NIH, the NINR funds nursing research and publishes findings from its programs.
• Nursing Reference Center: Care sheets, drug information, patient handouts, and lessons on diseases and treatments.
• PubMed: The U.S. National Library of Medicine's database of abstracts and full-text articles in life science and medicine.
• Sigma Repository: An open-access database of nursing research created by nurses, sponsored by the Sigma Theta Tau honor society.

Evaluating Sources

Bad sources produce bad research and can lead you to wrong conclusions. Before you trust an online source, run it through these questions, drawn from guidance by Georgetown University and the University of Chicago Press.

Who is the author? Find the author and their credentials. Do their education and experience qualify them on this topic? Check their other work. If no author is listed, look at whether the domain belongs to a reputable entity.

What is its purpose? Identify the intended audience and the reason it was published. Is it meant to inform, to persuade, or to sell something? A noncommercial source written to educate without persuading is the most likely to be reliable.

Does it look professional? Grammar and spelling errors, disorganized content, and profanity all signal a weak source. So does a site that pushes images and products over substance.

Is it objective? Academic sources present data, not opinion dressed as fact. Watch for bias, and check whether any endorsing organization holds an official position on the issue.

Is it current? Science moves fast. Check the publication date, and if it's more than a few years old, look for newer work. A site that hasn't been updated recently may be out of date.

What does it link to? Reliable sources link back to supporting research, in the text or a references list. Test the links. Broken links can mean the information is old.

Organizing Your Research

You'll sift through a lot of material, so stay organized before, during, and after the search, and cite every source accurately. A consistent system makes the work faster and more accurate:

• Track every source as you take notes so you can build accurate citations later.
• Find the original source. Cite the primary book or study, not an article that summarizes it.
• Bookmark pages, grouping them in folders when your browser allows.
• Record complete citations. A URL alone won't cut it; capture everything your bibliography needs.
• Note reliable sites so you can return to them.

Tools to Manage Your Research

• EasyBib: Notes, plagiarism checks, and citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago. Basic service and MLA citations are free; more access costs a monthly fee.
• EndNote: Reference and bibliography management with team sharing and student pricing.
• Mendeley: Built for science and technology research, with document storage, citation management, and a research network.
• RefWorks: A web-based reference manager that stores your database in an online portal. Some universities offer free access.
• Zotero: Free, open-source software for finding and organizing research materials and managing citations.

Citing Online Sources

Every research paper or presentation needs a consistent format and a bibliography. Nursing, like other science and social science fields, most often uses APA style, from the American Psychological Association. Some institutions instead require AMA style, from the American Medical Association. Either way, the style sets the format for punctuation, abbreviations, headings, statistics, and the order and punctuation of citations, so readers can find your sources.

APA Style

These examples come from the Purdue Online Writing Lab, which hosts an expanded list.

What Is a DOI?

When an article is published electronically, the publisher assigns it a digital object identifier (DOI): a permanent code and link. APA style recommends including the DOI whenever one is available.

Journal article with DOI

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number, page range. doi:0000000/000000000000 or http://doi.org/10.0000/0000

Brownlie, D. (2007). Toward effective poster presentations: An annotated bibliography. European Journal of Marketing, 41, 1245-1283. doi:10.1108/03090560710821161

Journal article without DOI

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume number. Retrieved from https://www.journalhomepage.com/full/url/

Kenneth, I. A. (2000). A Buddhist response to the nature of human rights. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 8. Retrieved from https://www.cac.psu.edu/jbe/twocont.html

Online newspaper article

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of article. Title of Newspaper. Retrieved from https://www.homeaddress.com/

Parker-Pope, T. (2008, May 6). Psychiatry handbook linked to drug industry. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/

Electronic book

Last name, A. A. (n.d.). Title. Available from https://www.urlofebook.com/full/url/

Davis, J. (n.d.). Familiar birdsongs of the Northwest. Available from https://www.powells.com/

AMA Style

The AMA Manual of Style sets the guidelines for writing and citing medical research. These examples come from the Arizona Health Sciences Library and the University of the Sciences library.

Website

Name of organization. Title of specific item cited. URL. Accessed date.

International Society for Infectious Diseases. ProMED-mail Website. https://www.promedmail.org. Accessed April 29, 2004.

Website with author and update date

Author A. Title. Name of website. URL. Updated date. Accessed date.

Sullivan D. Major search engines and directories. SearchEngineWatch Website. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156221. Updated April 28, 2004. Accessed December 6, 2005.

Online journal with DOI

Author A. Title. Name of online journal. URL. Publication year;volume(issue):page numbers. doi.

Florez H, Martinez R, Chakra W, Strickman-Stein M, Levis S. Outdoor exercise reduces the risk of hypovitaminosis D in the obese. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2007;103(3-5):679-681. doi:10.1016/j.jsbmb.2006.12.032.

Online journal with access date

Author A. Title. Name of online journal. URL. Publication year;volume(issue):page numbers. Access date.

Siris ES, Miller PD, Barrett-Connor E, et al. Identification and fracture outcomes of undiagnosed low bone mineral density in postmenopausal women: results from the National Osteoporosis Risk Assessment. JAMA. 2001;286(22):2815-2822. https://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/286/22/2815. Accessed April 4, 2007.