Online Research Guide for Nursing Students

Effective online nursing research skills can make a tremendous difference for your academic success in nursing school and throughout your career. Medicine and nursing change rapidly, and knowing how to conduct nursing research online keeps your skills and knowledge current.

Successful research includes both how to use nursing literature search engines and how to analyze the information you find. This helps you distinguish between reliable information that supports evidence-based nursing and misleading information that can influence your ability to care for patients.

This guide can help you find and effectively use the best nursing research websites and other research tools, whether you need a writing guide for nurses, continuing education coursework, or just hope to increase your knowledge in the field.

You can conduct most of your nursing research online, but some sources may not be available online. For example, your school library may subscribe to print journals not published on the internet. Many important books only exist in print.

Your school or hospital librarian is an invaluable resource to help you find materials online or in print. If your school or hospital doesn’t have a specific book or article, the librarian might be able to get it through an interlibrary loan service.

You can use only online nursing research tools if the most significant publications on a topic are available online. Otherwise, consider using print resources too.

When conducting online research, you must filter out unreliable sources and locate search results relevant to your topic. Fortunately, Google searches and other nursing literature search engines have tools to help you narrow your research to get the most reliable results.

In addition to open web searches, you can use the specialty nursing literature search engines listed below.

Google Scholar has special features to make it easier to find the most relevant professional literature on a topic. Besides letting you refine your search by date, it displays related articles or other articles by the author. If the piece is available in full-text online, Google Scholar links to the page. If not, you can search to see if your library has the article or can get you a copy.

Google Scholar also tells you how many other papers cite a particular source. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that an article has reliable and current information, it does demonstrate the article’s influence.

The search engine also offers tools to help you manage your research projects and write papers. You can create a citation in several standard formats and save an article to a list. You can make as many lists as you like, such as one for different topics or assignments.

If you want to follow a specific topic, refine your search to give you preferred results, and then select “create alert.” You will then receive emails with new articles as Google Scholar indexes them.

Google reigns as the most popular search engine, but many other online resources exist. Students may use several search engines and databases geared specifically toward academic searches. Many of these sites offer free or discounted services to students. Your school’s library may also provide access.

The list below describes some of the most common resources for academic research, including some sites that focus on online research for nurses.

When you conduct research on the web, you must evaluate the reliability of your sources. If your information comes from an untrustworthy source, the quality of your research will suffer and the data you gather may lead to incorrect conclusions.

When you need to determine an online information source’s reputation, you can ask yourself some questions to help evaluate its quality. The questions below include tips from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago Press.

Find the name of the article’s author or creator. Then locate the author’s credentials to determine whether their education and experience qualifies them to speak as an authority on the topic. You also can search for the author’s other works or more information about them.

If the source does not list an author, look at the domain to see whether it belongs to a reputable entity.

Look at the article and the hosting site. Who is the intended audience? Is the information for academics and experts or the general public? Why was it written and posted? Is it intended to inform or educate the reader, or does it attempt to persuade the reader to view a topic in a certain way? Is it meant to sell a product or service?

A noncommercial source that intends to educate the reader without persuasion is most likely to be reliable.

When you view the website and read the article, take note of any errors in grammar or spelling. The site’s content should appear clean and organized. Poorly organized content and errors in the text indicate unprofessionalism, as does the use of profanity.

If the site emphasizes images over text or appears to focus on selling products or services, it may not be a reliable source for scholarly information.

Academic sources should show objectivity and must not present opinions as hard data. Consider whether the information is fact or opinion. Does the author show any bias? Is the information officially endorsed or approved by an organization? If so, determine whether the organization takes an official position on the issue at hand.

When researching science and medical topics, students must find the most current information. Scientific knowledge progresses rapidly, and new research appears frequently.

Check the publishing date listed on your source. If it is more than a few years old, look for more current sources on the same topic. If a website has not been updated recently, this also may indicate information is outdated.

The links featured in your source may provide clues about the information’s reliability. The links should relate to the site’s purpose or the topic at hand. In most cases, a source should link back to research which supports the text. Students may find this information within the text or in a references list.

Test the links to make sure they work. If the links are broken, the information may be old or outdated.

You will most likely browse a large amount of information as you conduct research online. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, you must remain organized before, during, and after your search. Remember that you must cite all your sources accurately.

If you develop a consistent system for locating and organizing your information, your research efforts will be more efficient and accurate. Below are a few basic tips to help you manage and organize your online research.

When you write a research paper or create a research presentation, you must follow a consistent format and include a bibliography of all the sources you used. Several popular editorial styles exist. Science and social science disciplines, including nursing, most frequently use the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, commonly known as APA style.

Alternatively, some institutions require AMA style, created by the American Medical Association. The style you use depends on the institution you attend. These editorial styles establish a consistent format for researchers to follow when publishing their work. They cover aspects of writing, such as punctuation, accepted abbreviations, headings, and formatting for statistics and tables.

Style also dictates a specific format for listing citations, including the order in which the information must appear and the punctuation required. This formatting makes it easy for readers to retrieve sources that may interest them.

Several examples of APA style from the Purdue Online Writing Lab appear below. You can find an expanded list of such examples on the Purdue website.

When an article is published electronically, the publisher assigns a unique digital object identifier (DOI) to it. The DOI provides a permanent identification code and internet link for the article. APA style recommends that you include the DOI in any citation for which it is available. See the examples below.

The AMA Manual of Style details official guidelines for writing and citing medical research. The style is maintained by the American Medical Association. The examples below originate from the Arizona Health Sciences Library website and the USciences website.