Research Steps
1. Put keyword(s) into the OneSearch search engine. Keywords are words related to your topic that you use to search the databases.
- Think about keywords that express your topic or ideas related to your topic. Pay attention to terms that you come across during your research. Academic searches use keywords instead of phrases ("nursing and ethics" instead of "What are ethical nursing practices?").
- Make a list of keywords about your topic from personal knowledge, the assignment, textbooks, lectures, library database research (articles, ebooks, abstracts, etc.), online research, etc.
- Try different keywords as your search or as you learn more about your topic.
- For this example, my keywords are: ethics AND nursing.
Try A Search Yourself!
2. Use the Refine Results menu (on the left) to filter or focus your results.
- Under Availability, check Available Online and Peer-Reviewed Journals.
- Under Resource Type, check Articles.
- Under Creation Date, set the years to an appropriate timeframe for your results.
- No matter the database, filters can usually be found on the left-hand side.
- Use filters to narrow your search results to only the most relevant sources.
- Filters allow you to find peer-reviewed articles, which are important for academic research.
3. Scroll through, click a title of interest, and click on the database under "full text availability."
- Titles provide insight on the article's topic and help you determine if it it fits your research needs.
- To access the full article, go to View Online and click into the database (or one of the databases).
- This particular article is in the Proquest database; other popular databases are EBSCO, PubMed, and JSTOR.
4. Use the tool buttons in the upper right to save and email articles to yourself with the proper citation style.
