This tutorial provides an overview of resources for nursing students conducting research from a distance, including databases like CINAHL, PubMed, and PsycINFO. It discusses evaluating information sources, developing search strategies, and organizing research materials. The tutorial aims to help students understand scholarly resources, demonstrate database usage, identify subject-specific sources, and utilize discussed search and citation management tools for their academic needs.

1. Nursing Resources &
Research Tutorial: Distance
Learners
Instruction, Reference & Distance Education
Librarian
Seth M. Porter

2. Tutorial Outline
 Learning Outcomes
 Evaluating Information
 The Research Process
 Searching Tips
 Research Resources
 Nursing Specific Resources
 Organizational Resources & Tools
 Contact Information

3. LEARNING OUTCOMES
 Students will be able to explain the difference between
scholarly and non-scholarly research resources
 Students will be able to demonstrate the use of research
resources
 Students will be able to list subject specific nursing
databases
 Students will utilize search strategies and resources
discussed to begin article research for their academic needs

4. Evaluating information
• When you pull an article, book or
journal you want to make sure it is
relevant to you and your specific
information needs.
• This could mean a lot of different
things depending on the research
topic.
• Regardless of your research needs an
easy way to make sure your
information quality is appropriate is to
make sure it passes the “CRAAP” Test
• For example if your needs involve a
Peer Reviewed academic article, it
would most likely pass the CRAAP
test without critical investigation. But if
you found a great Health/Nursing
article on the open web or even a
blog, you would want to make sure it
passes as well as doing more due
diligence on the author to check their
creditability

5. Use this
worksheet
as a way to
test your
information
resources.

6. Information Gathering: The research
process
1. Identify Information resources to access: E.G, Specific
Databases, Journals and more.
2. Break down research idea or topic into searchable
phrases
3. Identify Keywords to search
4. Use AND to Connect Search Terms for a more specific
retrieval process
5. Use OR with alternative keywords for a larger but less
precise information recall

7. Search tips
 Potential
Research idea:
 How to deal with the
emotionally draining
effects of tending for
the patients under a
nurses care; what are
the most effective
coping procedures for
nurses?
 Break down
the idea or
research topic
into keywords,
EG:
 Emotional effects,
coping procedures,
nurses, patients
 Use synonyms when
searching to retrieve better
results
 Use technical and subject
specific professional terms
when applicable

8. Searching Tips
• Have you ever found an article that
was perfect?
• Wish you had more just like it? With a
little research you will.
• Footnote chasing is the act of
finding citations and references in
your current article and using these
articles for your research.

9. Chase those Footnotes

11. INFORMATION RESOURCES
Print & General Resources
 Books & Journals:
http://librarycatalog.uah.edu
 ILLIAD: http://libguides.uah.edu/ill
 Libraryguides:
http://libguides.uah.edu/nursing
 OneSearch: http://www.uah.edu/library

12. ONESEARCH WALK THROUGH
When you visit the Library web page one of the first things you will see is the
Big search box called OneSearch
OneSearch is a relatively new feature which searches the majority of our
Databases, journals, and catalog at one time
This is great place to begin your research, but don’t end it here. OneSearch big it will retrieve a lot of information which isn’t pertinent to your research
needs. Begin here with a quick search and see if you can find anything relevant then move onto a subject specific database
The next few slides will be a walk through and tutorial of using OneSearch. Most
Databases are designed similarly and if you can access information on Onesearch
you can access it anywhere.

13. Simply enter your research topic into the search
interface. Use Keywords for a better result.

14. If the article has a blue “Find it at UAH” we have
access to the article, often in full-text which is
accessible from your computer
On the left
side you can
limit your
search to
full text (which
means it will
only Retrieve
articles
accessible
fully online),
Peer reviewed,
date and more.
This is a great
way to narrow
your search
and make it
more relevant.
The article in its full form is available as a PDF.

15. The abstract is an overview of
the article. Always read the
abstract first to see if the article
is relevant to your needs.
Full text version
of the article will
be placed here.
This is the tools bar which lets you
create a folder for your articles, print,
email, save, cite and more with your
information. Most databases have this
feature. Keep an eye out because they
are valuable tools.

16. General Databases
Remember you can access this information remotely!
• Academic Search Complete
• Wiley Online Library
• Opposing viewpoints
• JSTOR
• Google Scholar

17. General Databases cont.
• Academic Search Complete
• Academic Search Complete is a valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary
full-text database. The best database for general or multi-disciplinary research
• Opposing Viewpoints
• One-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic
overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and
newspaper articles
• JSTOR
• JSTOR provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly
journals in the humanities and social sciences from the earliest issues
to within a few years of current publication. This is great for general
research

18. Specific Nursing Databases
• CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing &
Allied Health Literature)
• PubMed
• Alt Health Watch Health Reference Center
Academic
• OVID
• PsycARTICLES

19. Specific Nursing Databases
cont.
• CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health
Literature)
• Is a comprehensive nursing specific database. This will be your go to
research resource as a nursing researcher. It includes searchable
cited references including an advanced searching tool which makes it
possible to pull articles written specifically by nurses.
• PubMed:
• A rich resource for the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary
medicine, health care systems, and preclinical sciences. This is
accessible through AVL and is available after you graduate as an open
source resource.
• PsycARTICLES or PsycInfo
• Both of these databases are multidiscipline with a focus on mental
health.

20. INFORMATION ORGANIZATION
 When doing academic research it is
important to cite your sources and
manage your citations properly
 There are many reference sources to
check your citations
 There are great tools to manage your
information and citations when doing
research

21. Organizational Tools
• UAH Style Guides:
• If you have any citation questions this is an overview of the popular citation
formats and references.
• OWL Purdue:
• This is the go to site when you have questions on citation format. When in
doubt go to OWL Purdue!
• Zotero:
• Endnote:

22. Organizational Tools
Zotero:
Citation
Management
• Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable
interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video
files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else.
Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your
library. This is a free open-source citation manager. It is
user intuitive and easy to use, think of like your research i-
Tunes.
Endnote:
• A great reference manager, the basic is free the more
advanced is subscription based. Great for building
bibliographies.

23. QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS
Contact:
 Call us: (256)824-6529
 Text us: (256) 286-2368
 Chat with us: http://libanswers.uah.edu/
 https://twitter.com/uahlibrary
 https://www.facebook.com/uahlibrary
 Seth Porter: Instructional, Reference & Distance Learning Librarian
 256.824.6130
 smp0024@uah.edu