Nursing: Literature Review
- Required Texts
- Writing Assistance and Organizing & Citing References
- NCLEX Resources
- Literature Review
- MSN Students
- Physical Examination
- Drug Information
- Professional Organizations
- Mobile Apps
- Evidence-based Medicine
- Certifications
- Recommended Nursing Textbooks
- DNP Students
- Conducting Research
- Scoping Reviews
- Systematic Reviews
- Distance Education Students
- Ordering from your Home Library
Good Place to Start: Citation Databases
Interdisciplinary Citation Databases:
A good place to start your research is to search a research citation database to view the scope of literature available on your topic.
TIP #1: SEED ARTICLE Begin your research with a "seed article" - an article that strongly supports your research topic. Then use a citation database to follow the studies published by finding articles which have cited that article, either because they support it or because they disagree with it.
TIP #2: SNOWBALLING Snowballing is the process where researchers will begin with a select number of articles they have identified relevant/strongly supports their topic and then search each articles' references reviewing the studies cited to determine if they are relevant to your research.
BONUS POINTS: This process also helps identify key highly cited authors within a topic to help establish the "experts" in the field.
Begin by constructing a focused research question to help you then convert it into an effective search strategy.
- Identify keywords or synonyms
- Type of study/resources
- Which database(s) to search
- Asking a Good Question (PICO)
- PICO - AHRQ
- PICO - Worksheet
- What Is a PICOT Question?
Seminal Works: Search Key Indexing/Citation Databases
- Google Scholar
- Web of Science
TIP – How to Locate Seminal Works
- DO NOT: Limit by date range or you might overlook the seminal works
- DO: Look at highly cited references (Seminal articles are frequently referred to “cited” in the research)
- DO: Search citation databases like Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar
Web Resources
What is a literature review?
A literature review is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of published information on a subject area. Conducting a literature review demands a careful examination of a body of literature that has been published that helps answer your research question (See PICO). Literature reviewed includes scholarly journals, scholarly books, authoritative databases, primary sources and grey literature.
A literature review attempts to answer the following:
- What is known about the subject?
- What is the chronology of knowledge about my subject?
- Are there any gaps in the literature?
- Is there a consensus/debate on issues?
- Create a clear research question/statement
- Define the scope of the review include limitations (i.e. gender, age, location, nationality...)
- Search existing literature including classic works on your topic and grey literature
- Evaluate results and the evidence (Avoid discounting information that contradicts your research)
- Track and organize references
- How to conduct an effective literature search.
- Social Work Literature Review Guidelines (OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab)
What is PICO?
The PICO model can help you formulate a good clinical question. Sometimes it's referred to as PICO-T, containing an optional 5th factor.
Search Example
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- Last Updated: Nov 6, 2024 12:16 PM
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