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finding NURSING INFORMATION: decide what kind of information you need

types of nursing information    start with a good topic    decide what kind of information you need    search for journal articles    search for books    search for statistics    evaluating search results    getting full-text    journal title abbreviations    citing sources    getting citations automatically via e-mail   

stethescope   Do you need general or specific information?

Oftentimes faculty will specify whether to use books or journal articles for assignments. If they do not, then you need to think about whether your research question could be best answered using general or specific information. General or background information is most commonly found in books or other secondary and tertiary sources. Some quality websites can even be used to answer general questions. Alternately, research questions about specific topics are best answered using journal articles, which are usually primary sources.

These are a few general research questions you could easily answer using books and other secondary and tertiary sources:

If you need information about a specific topic or if you need information about a general topic but couldn't find a book to suit your needs, then you will want to look journal articles.

These are a few specific research questions you could answer using journal articles:

stethescope   Where to look for information

categorytype of materialwhere to lookwhat it's called
generalbooks in the UConn Librariesthe UConn library catalogHOMER
specificnursing journal articlesdatabase of nursing journalsCINAHL
specificbiomedical journal articlesdatabase of biomedical journalsPubMed
specificother types of journal articlesfind an appropriate databasenursing databases page

thermometer    Test your ability to identify the source you need.

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for help finding nursing information, contact: Valori.Banfi@uconn.edu
to comment on this tutorial, contact: Jill.Livingston@uconn.edu