BSc Veterinary Nursing - literature searching for your dissertation 2016

Literature searching for your dissertation –finding the evidence

BSc Veterinary Nursing

October 2016

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What will we be doing today?

• Refresh and review literature searching strategies;

• Spend some time carrying out your own

search;

• Search tips and citation searching

• What would YOU like to cover?

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What do you want to cover?

• Finish this sentence: “By the end of today’s session I want to have covered/looked at/done…”

1. *

2. *

3. *

Presentation title | 3

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Doing a literature review

• Aim is to comprehensively review what is known publically (published) on a subject –the “evidence base”

• Starting point for further research – “sets the scene” and/or application to practice

• Two parts: Thorough literature search

• Critical analysis of the findings

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Planning your search

Think about:

• Areas of interest

• Keywords

• Scope of subject

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Keywords

• Brainstorm – it will save you time later!

• Searching only one word for your concept will not necessarily bring you all the results. And sometimes none.

Not everyone uses the same terminology for the same idea.

• Use the worksheet if you like (it also helps you organise how to combine the terms with ‘AND’ or ‘OR’)

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What exactly are you trying to find out? The PICO model

• Patient / population / problem

• Intervention

• Comparison

• Outcome

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Planning your search -keywords

1. Pick out your concepts and separate them

—Cats, obesity, prevention, nurse’s role etc

2. Think of other words that are similar to your key words but represent the same concepts

—Feline, weight management, advice etc

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Things to consider

• Synonyms

• US /UK spellings and terminology

• Old and new terminology

• Broader and narrower topics

• Acronyms and abbreviations

• Medical and everyday terminology

• Variations of words – use truncation (e.g. Obes* will search for obese, obesity etc)

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Feline obesity

Felines

• Cats

• Ages?

• Breeds?

Obesity

• Overweight

• Weight management

• Healthy weight

• Weight loss

• Related conditions e.g. diabetes

Prevention /management

etc

• Diet

• Nutrition

• Food/feeding

• Exercise

• Advice

• Attitudes (owners, professionals)

What is the role of

the veterinary nurse

in prevention and

management of

feline obesity?

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Over to you...

• Using the worksheet

• Briefly summarise your topic in the first box

• Narrow it down to some key words

• Swap with your neighbour – add some they haven’t thought of

Where to search?

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Sources to search

• Summon

• Databases

• Google Scholar

• Individual journals specific to your topic

See the journals page on the VN library subject guide

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Thinking outside the box

• Using literature from related fields (veterinary medicine and human nursing)

• Example – using CINAHL to find nursing literature on infection control to draw comparisons with VN article

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• Widen your search

eg. Obesity OR overweight OR weight management

• Narrow your search

eg. Obesity AND Feline

Search tips

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• Search for phrases (“”):

eg. “feline lower urinary tract disease”

• Broaden your search (*):

eg. prevent* (finds prevent, prevents, preventing, preventative etc)

Search tips

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Limiting your search

• Date

• Peer reviewed

• Language

• Type of journal

• Type of article / study

• Research articles, animals (depending on database)

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Keeping track of your searches

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Getting full text of journal articles

• Regardless of where you’re searching…be logged into myUniHub and click on a My Library/My Study link first

• If you’re not lucky… REMEMBER – it won’t always be directly available to you – especially for dissertations

• Double-check (Summon/Google Scholar - versions)

• Google it!

— Researcher networks (e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu), contacting

authors

— Authors’ & institutions’ websites

• Inter-Library Loans

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Citation searching

• Which articles have cited an earlier article

• Find articles on similar/related subject

• How many times an article has been cited

• Best journals in your field

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Citation searching

• Allows you to move forwards and backwards in the literature

• Use Google Scholar, Summon or Science Citation Index

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Citation searching - Summon

| 22

See articles

which cite this

one in Web of

Science / Science

Citation Index

Citing

articles in

Scopus

Mentions on

social

media,

blogs, news

sources etc

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Distinguishing between primary andsecondary sources

• Primary sources – original research published by the researchers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Secondary sources – work that summarises, critiques or reviews primary research.

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Critical appraisal – why?

• Part of your literature review!

• As practitioners ensures that your decisions are based on good quality research

• The more you read the easier it gets

• Saves time by being able to assess if a piece of research is of good quality and worth reading

• Develop the ability to make your own judgements on whether a research conclusion is valid

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Need further help?

• 1:1 appointments bookable via the VN guide

• email Jo Wilson j.r.wilson@mdx.ac.uk

• Ask a Librarian https://unihelp.mdx.ac.uk/askalibrarian

• Drop in to the Study Hub (1st floor), Mon-Fri 9-5