MSN Orientation - Marietta Bell-Scriber
Online Library Resources for Nursing Research
Starting your Research
To effectively research health sciences topics, it is essential to use the appropriate resources. Subject-specific encyclopedias are a good starting point for finding background information on your topic. To locate online encyclopedias, you may wish to search your topic in the Electronic Medical Library Stat!Ref that searches the contents of many medical reference books. There are also many online encyclopedias available through our Online Reference Resources collection. Also, Ebrary is a collection of many online books that may prove to be helpful. For more information on how to use Ebrary, click here.
After gathering background information on your topic, you will want to focus your search in general and research databases to find articles on your topic. When doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on to use databases and other online resources licensed by FSU. Click here for information on off-campus database access. For more extensive information on using library resources from off campus, please visit the Distance Education Library Services webpages.
FLITE Databases
Stat!Ref
As stated above, Stat!Ref is an excellent starting point for researching medical topics. Enter your search term into the search box and you will obtain a rank-ordered list of results taken from various medical encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other medical reference books. A very helpful feature of this database is the Related Concepts box to the left of the results that will provide you with synonyms for your topic. These related concepts or synonyms can be used to enhance your searches in this database, as well as the other databases. You can also use medical acronyms and abbreviations when searching in this database.
Click here for a Stat!Ref Database Guide.
CINAHL
The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) currently gathers information from more than 1800 journals. Use the CINAHL Headings subtab to get more subject-specific information on various topics. When you have found your subject heading, you may click on it to break your topic down by subdivision. Click on the refine search tab to add limits such as peer-reviewed or publication date limits. You can narrow and expand your search using the options available in this database.
PubMed
This is the largest biomedical database, with over 16 million citations. Search using keywords and then limit your search if necessary using the limits tab, related articles link, or selecting the Review tab to see only review articles. Other highly useful resources linked from PubMed include Single Citation Matcher and Consumer Health.
Click here for a PubMed tutorial.
General OneFile
This is a general database that will be useful for searching many subject areas. Academic Onefile is a database that will have many similar articles, but will also have unique content, so try them both! Academic OneFile operates in the same manner as General OneFile. For both General OneFile and Academic OneFile, the default search is a subject guide search. In the subject guide search you can only search one term at a time. If you are having difficulties finding the proper subject term, switch to the Advanced Search and perform a keyword search, then select a pertinent article to find the proper subject heading. Also use the Advanced Search if combining search terms. In the Advanced Search you can limit your articles to particular journals, full-text, peer-reviewed, etc.
ERIC
The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a premier resource for finding information for many aspects of education, including nursing education. Once you graduate, you will still have access to ERIC through the Department of Education, because it is another database made available by the U.S. government, as is PubMed.
Health & Wellness Resource Center
Find information from medical encyclopedias, journal articles, pamphlets, videos, and more using this database that is filled with information oriented towards health care consumers. This is a nice place to get a general overview of different diseases and conditions, as well as medications.
Academic Press IDEAL Journals via Science Direct and Health Sciences Sage Full Text are collections of online full-text journals. You may search by keyword to locate full-text articles within these journal collections.
Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles
In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.
Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See image below.
Sample Journal Link-Out:
Evaluating your Articles
Before requesting articles from interlibrary loan, please review the abstract and make sure that the article is on-topic. Also, please insure that the article is in a language that you speak, as some databases, such as PubMed index many non-English articles that have abstracts written in English. After you have evaluated the topical coverage and language of the article, please do not hesitate to request it through interlibrary loan if it is not available on campus.
Other Useful Library Links
Find Articles:
Look for articles using FLITE's databases.
Find Journals:
Look for journals by doing title searches, or search by subjects. For nursing, select Health Sciences as the subject, and Nursing as the subcategory to get a listing of the many journals available in this area.
Find Books and More:
Look for books, journals, videos, and other library holdings.
APA Citation Style Guide:
Learn basics about APA style, a prevalent citation format in the medical field.
Refbase:
Put citations in APA style, MLA, Chicago, etc. with this this helpful citation management tool. You may want to look at the Refbase tutorials.
Northern Michigan University's APA Style Guide: An excellent APA style resource. For Nursing Specific examples, including how to cite books from Stat!Ref, click here.
Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315
Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.
Last update: August 25, 2009