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NUR208 Health Promotion for Fam II: Research Tips for Nursing

Tutorial

Tips to Improve your Search

Advanced Search

Use the Advanced Search to access all the search limits available.

Limit to Nursing Journals

An easy way to limit your search to Nursing Journals is to search for NURS* and use the limit: SO Publication Name (in the CINAHL database) or PUB Publication Title (in ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Database).

NURS* will limit your search to journals with the words: nurse, nursing, nurses in the title. 

Search by Subject

Limiting the search by subject will help you find articles with your search terms as a primary focus of the article.

Limit to Peer Reviewed

Often you will be required to find Peer Reviewed (or Scholarly) articles. This means they have been reviewed by professionals in the field and have gone through a significant editorial process. All library databases have a search limit for Peer Reviewed (or Scholarly). You may need to look in the Advanced Search section to find it.

Limit to Full Text

Click the box for Full Text to limit to articles available in Full Text.

Boolean Operators

Use AND, OR, NOT to narrow down your search results

More Tips

Truncation *

use the * to truncate a search term that may have multiple relevant endings.

ex. searching for child* will find results with the words: child, child's, children

Quotation marks

Put quotation marks around phrases to search for the phrase rather than the words separately.

ex. "physical therapy" will only retrieve results with the phrase physical therapy.

Database Limiters  (often found on the Advance Search Screen)

Use database limiters to narrow down your search results: full-text articles only, a certain date range, or only peer-reviewed articles.

Evidence Based

One of the easiest ways to find evidence-based practice research is to look for systematic reviews or meta-analysis articles which find, evaluate and summarize several research studies in one article.

  • In one of the search fields type "systematic reviews" OR meta-analysis

Tips for Accessing OVID

When you click the link to the OVID database it will say please log in at the top.

OVID Log in

Click the Log in link and you will see this box.

OVID OpenAthens

Click the OPENATHENS | Institutional link under the box and search for Trident Technical College to login.

Once logged in, click on ADVANCED (next to the search bar) at the top and enter your search terms in the fields.

Using Limits to refine your Search

ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Database: limit your search to Nursing Journals

To limit your search to nursing journals, search for NUR* and limit the search to the PUB Publication Title field.

CINHAL Complete: limit your search to Nursing Journals

CINHAL Complete: limit your search to Nursing Journals

To limit your search to nursing journals, search for NUR* and limit the search to the SO Publication Name field.

Peer Reviewed box

Peer Reviewed

Click the box for Peer Reviewed to filter you search to articles in Peer Reviewed Journals.

Using Boolean Operators to improve your search

Using AND OR NOT (Boolean Operators) to improve your search

Limit your search by Subject

Limit your Search by Subject

Limiting the search by subject will help you find articles with your search terms as a primary focus of the article.