Nursing Tutorial

What are the best resources to use for your topic?

Nursing uses the same types of information resources described in Module 1: books, magazine or journal articles, reference sources, newspaper articles, and Internet sites. In addition to these sources, the Wright State University Libraries offer access to several nursing-specific databases and online full-text journal collections.

BOOKS
If you are unfamiliar with your topic, books are a good place to begin gathering background information. Books often provide good overviews or broad coverage of topics. Remember that it takes several years to get a book published; consequently they do not necessarily contain the most current information on a subject. An explanation on using the library catalog to find books follows later in this tutorial.

JOURNALS
In nursing, it is very important to use journal articles to find the most current information available on your topic. Citations to journal articles are found by using the computerized databases appropriate for your nursing topic. A descriptive list of databases is provided in the next section.

REFERENCE SOURCES
There are many reference sources in nursing that can provide you with basic factual information. These may be in print or electronic format. Some useful online reference resources can be accessed on the Libraries' web site under RESEARCH GUIDES BY SUBJECT.

FULL-TEXT ONLINE JOURNAL COLLECTIONS
These full-text resources are valuable if you are unable to access the library. They can be searched by topic and your search results will be available in full-text online. You can then decide to print them out or read them from the screen. A descriptive list follows later on in the tutorial.

INTERNET
Remember to evaluate the sources you find. Are they reputable? For more information on evaluating internet sources, please see Evaluating Internet Health Information: A Tutorial from the National Library of Medicine.