Levine Hall 542F & Belk Library 225, (828)262-7853
Congratulations graduates!
There's no way to beat this page when you see it. You'll have to go back to one of the Library pages and start CINAHL (or APPsearch or other) all over again, and sometimes you have to clear your search history. You should not have to log into an EBSCO account. That will not help. (It can be helpful to backspace and look at the search terms you were using, if they were working.)
Videos
Take a look at these videos. They're all about 3 to 5 minutes long. Let me know if you have questions or problems. -- JohnW
Choosing search words is a challenge for researchers. Sometimes, there is not a good fit between the possible words and the concepts. Other times, you just don't know what the best words are at first.
1. Keep it simple. Choose a word or short phrase (in quotation marks, if it helps) for each concept. Which words distinguish your concept? Many words you might use could show up in many articles on lots of topics. Don't bother with those, if you can avoid them.
2. Before you start, think. What words would researchers use? Think about narrower words, broader words, and words that are related. Consider jotting them down or making a document that you can copy and paste from.
3. Watch for alternative words as you go. Look at the subject headings.
4. As you go, think about adding more words to get fewer results that are more focused on your topic. Or try taking words out or substituting in words with broader meanings, in order to get more results. You can search on authors, methodologies, data sources, outcomes, or almost anything else of interest.
5. Consider searching in the CINAHL Headings and PubMed MeSH databases before you start really searching for articles.
6. You can ask for help also.
7. Above, I suggested using just one word or short phrase for each concept. If you have synonyms or related terms, you can search on them at the same time using OR.
examples: (teenagers OR adolescents OR youths)
("eating disorders" OR bulimia OR anorexia)
(carolina OR virginia OR appalach*)
You can also use the asterisk, to search for different variations of a word.
Example: theor* will find all these: theory, theories, theoretical
Exceptions:
Asterisks don't work, and are not necessary, in Google Scholar (and Google).
Mostly, don't use quotation marks in PubMed. They override PubMed's automatic term mapping system.
PICO
Helps with creating an answerable, useful question. Helps with choice of search words.
Problem or population -- soccer players
Intervention -- preventive training (or more specific type of preventive training)
Comparison treatment (or placebo) -- alternate type of preventive training? what's being used up to now.
Outcome -- count frequency and severity of injuries. Missed games or training.
Also see page on Nursing topics: more reference books, theories, Nursing Education, psychiatric DSM-5
Books on the health sciences are on the 3rd floor, in the northeast corner. They start with R. Look for the books focusing on Nursing in the RT area.
Many of our Nursing books are ebooks.
AppState Online students -- We mostly have ebooks for you. Well, we really mostly have journal articles, and more journal articles, for you. But we do also have a system to mail you physical books, if that's what you need. See this library guide.
Anatomy imaging software.
Need a DOI? Check the article carefully first. Search CrossRef here. But also for older articles, from before about 2010-2012, there might not be a DOI. Even some current articles, from competent but low cost journals usually, will not have DOI numbers.
3. If you have any doubts still, try web searches such as: "journal title" predatory. Look at lists of editors. The Australian and Norwegian lists in Dimensions are authoritative. I can look with you, if you like.
Levine Hall 542F & Belk Library 225, (828)262-7853
University Libraries
218 College Street • PO Box 32026 • Boone, NC 28608
Phone: 828.262.2818