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Kraemer Family Library

Nursing Research

Tips for Searching for Articles

This page is designed to help you locate articles and other short information sources. You can find more information about evaluating sources on our Evaluating Research Articles page. If you would like course-specific resources you can check out our Finding Class-Specific Resources page. If you are currently taking Fundamentals of Nursing Practice you can find more information relevant to that class on the NURS 2200 CINAHL Tips page.

Coming Up With More Search Terms

Subject Terms

Most databases (websites where you can search for articles) will include a list of subject terms for each article to show what concepts or terms the database uses to organize the article. These terms are great to add to your search to find similar results and to expand your search keywords. You can find them in a few different places.

OneSearch (aka the main search bar on the library's website)

If you're searching in OneSearch, you can see the subject terms for a source by clicking on the More Info option below each source.

CINAHL or Other EBSCO Products (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SportDiscus)

If you're searching in CINAHL or another Ebsco database, you can find subject terms on the detailed record page (page that appears after you click the article title in the results list). They are usually listed above the abstract as Major Subject Terms, Subject Terms, etc.

PubMed

In PubMed, the main type of subject term that you will see is MeSH headings. These are used to make searching for related subjects easier. You can find MeSH terms to use as keywords by viewing article records and expanding the section labeled Publication Type, MeSH terms.

Searching for Cited Articles

Ancestry searching is a technique that looks for more information by finding the articles cited by a source (parents) and the articles that also cite that source (children). It's called ancestry searching because you are looking both backwards and forwards in the "generations" of research.

Finding Parents (Cited Sources)

  1. Use the works cited list on your article. Do any of the sources sound like they deal with the same topics? Are they recent enough to meet the requirements of your assignment?

  2. Make a list of the articles you are interested in.

  3. Use Google Scholar or OneSearch to look them up and determine their availability. 

Finding Children (Sources Citing Your Source)

  1.  Put the title of your source into Google Scholar. 

  2.  When you've found your source as a result, click on the Cited By link below it. 

Google Scholar result with Cited by link circled.

  •  Do any of the sources sound like they deal with the same topics? 
  •  If you get too many Cited By  results, you can check the Search Within Citing Articles box and enter additional keywords (probably the same as you've been using to research your topic) to limit the results to those that are most relevant to you. 

Google Scholar Cited By Results with Search within citing articles checkbox pointed out.

Filtering by Types of Studies

Searching for Specific Types of Studies

You can search for studies based on study type in many different databases (such as PubMed and CINAHL). The specific types of studies you can search for, as well as how accurate the results are, may vary depending on which database you are searching in. The following are a few examples of common databases and some of their study type categories.

On PubMed, you can search for studies through clicking on the "See all article type filters."

The following are a few of the study/article types you can filter by:

  • Clinical Trial:
    • These should mention an intervention in the methodology section.
    • You can further narrow it down based on what stage of the trial you want (such as Phase I, Phase II, etc.).
  • Comparative Study:
    • Compares different results/outcomes from a variety of interventions, which should be mentioned in the methodology section.
  • Evaluation Study:
    • Check the abstract and methodology section to see if a study is focused on assessing a practice.
  • Observational Study:
    • See if the study mentions the outcomes of interventions not chosen by the researchers. There should be no mentioning of assigning interventions in the methodology section.
  • Randomized Control Trial:
    • Check the methodology section of the study to see if treatments/interventions were given through random means.
  • Systematic Review:
    • Most systematic reviews should mention what they are in the title, though check the abstract as well to see if a study is a review of other studies or if it is original research.

 

On CINAHL Complete, you can search for study types through either selecting the publication type or through typing the type of study you want in the search bar. Be careful with searching for study types in the search bar though, as some study types may be called different names, and if those terms are not also included it may result in relevant studies being excluded from the results list.

The following are some of the study/article types you can use from the "Publication Type" box:

  • Case Study:
    • Look in the abstract and methodology section to see how many people/cases are being studied.
  • Clinical Trial:
    • See if there are any interventions mentioned in the methodology section.
  • Randomized Control Trial:
    • Check the methodology section of the study to see if treatments/interventions were given through random means.
  • Systematic Review
    • Most systematic reviews should mention what they are in the title, though check the abstract as well to see if a study is a review of other studies or if it is original research.