Tutorial
- Nursing Research TutorialThis interactive tutorial shows you how to refine your search to retrieve peer reviewed, evidence-based research article, in Nursing journals.
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.
Click the Log in link and you will see this box.
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
To limit your search to nursing journals, search for NUR* and limit the search to the SO Publication Name field.
Peer Reviewed
Click the box for Peer Reviewed to filter you search to articles in Peer Reviewed Journals.
Using AND OR NOT (Boolean Operators) to improve your search
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.