FINDING SCHOLARLY, FULL-TEXT NURSING ARTICLES IN LIBRARY DATABASESForsyth Library, Fort Hays State University

How to focus your search

Most databases have a way for

you to limit your search so you

only find articles of a certain type,

such as Peer-Reviewed (also called Scholarly or Refereed) or

Full-text (the complete article

is available).

This presentation will show where to find and use these limits in various nursing and public databases.

How to access the Nursing databases

Go to the Scholarly Articles page of the FHSU Nursing Research Guide

For a list of the best nursing databases:

http://fhsuguides.fhsu.edu/nursing*TigerTracks login required to access all but PubMed Central & Google Scholar

CINAHL (SIN-awl) Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature

Cinahl offers more limiting options

than most databases, which

lets you perform a very precise

search. To start with, however, Full-

Text, Peer-Reviewed and

perhaps Research Article are

sufficient. If you select too many

limits, you may not find anything.

Limits your results to only those

citations which have a link to the complete article

Only articles that are reporting the results of a

research experiment. Note: an article can be from a

peer-reviewed journal but still not be a research article (could be an

editorial, book review, etc.)

Only articles which are from scholarly academic journals, and

have been examined by experts in that field (peer-reviewers). These articles are of the highest quality and contain the most trustworthy

information.

Check the bibliography of relevant articles to find additional articles:

Use the “cited references” link if one is available, or use the bibliography within the article.

To find full-text using a citation from an article’s bibliography, search Primo for the article title in quotes

If found, a link to the article will come up. Click “view It” then click the database link.

Cochrane Library

This database contains a wealth of evidence-based

data on treatments,

technologies, and more. The Systematic

Reviews are meta-analyses of many

studies of the same treatment, to reach a conclusion about its effectiveness as well as the quality of the research .

Trials are individual studies and may or may

not have a link to the full-text of the

article.

Use the quick search box, or click Advanced Search to combine terms

or use MeSH headings (Medical Subject Headings--uniform

terms for medical subjects)

migraine

Cochrane Library results list

“Reviews” are completed and are full-text.

“Protocols” are reviews which have just begun, so very little information is available.

ProQuest Nursing

This database contains

articles from scholarly journals,

trade publications & magazines as

well as full-text

Dissertations. If you want to

view dissertations, do not limit to

Scholarly Journals.

Limit your search to Full-Text & Peer-Reviewed to find scholarly article citations which

have a link to the complete article.

Science Direct: Health & Life Sciences Collections

First, select “Advanced Search” in the green toolbar at the top.

Science Direct: Health & Life Sciences Collections

Type in your search terms

Select “Subscribed Publications” and

“Open Access Articles” so you’ll get only full-text results.

4. Select your subject (optional) or just leave it at All Sciences.

All articles in Science Direct are scholarly.

Sage Premier

Select Advanced Search

Sage Premier database contains

ONLY scholarly articles. It covers a

wide range of disciplines, including

Health Sciences.

Select “Sage Journals Available to Me” to get full-text articles.

or

Health Source:Nursing & Academic Edition

Health Source Nursing & Academic

Edition is an Ebscohost

database and can be

searched along with other Ebscohost

databases, like CINAHL, by

clicking “Choose

Databases”

Check the boxes for Full-Text & Scholarly

Health Source continued

If you forget to limit your

search on the first screen, you can use

the limit options on

the left side of the results

screen.

PubMed Central

PubMed Central is a subset of PubMed. All articles in PubMed Central are full-text, scholarly articles from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.

Use the basic search, or click Advanced to combine terms

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc

Google Scholar

Google Scholar searches “articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions”. Some have links to the complete article. To begin, just search as you would search Google.

http://scholar.google.com

Advanced Search in Google Scholar

Once you have a list of results, click the arrow next to My Citations to

access Advanced Search, if needed.

Search Tip: Articles that cited your article

Looking for the articles that cited your article is a way of “researching forward”. For example, say you found an article you liked, but it was out of date. By “researching forward”, you can locate similar articles

that are more recent. Also, the number of times an article is cited gives you an idea of how much impact it had.

Links to Full-Text

Some articles are freely available online.

If a link doesn’t work, search for “the article title” in Primo:

Other ways to obtain full-text articles:

If you don’t find enough

articles when limiting your search to full-text, remove

that limit. Articles may

be available in other

databases, in print, or from

another library (Interlibrary

Loan)

Click Find It at Forsyth to search other databases for the complete article.

If found, a link to the article will be shown.

If not found, you can request the article from another library (Interlibrary Loan).

Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad)

If it is your first request, you’ll need to create an ILLiad account Then log in and request your items.

www.fhsu.edu/library/ill

Questions? Just ask!

Forsyth LibraryFort Hays State University785-628-4434refserv@fhsu.edu

Presentation created by MaryAlice Wade, Teaching & Research Librarian, Forsyth Library, Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS 2014