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NSG 648: Finding Articles

Important Note

Please be sure to review the information on the Before You Search! tab on the left menu before you begin searching in the tools listed on this tab. The Before You Search! tab explains what a "peer reviewed" article is and how to tell when you have found one. It also gives tips for building more effective searches. There are brief videos and tutorials that explain how to choose the best keywords, refine your searches, and evaluate the information you find.

CINAHL, Health Source Nursing, and MEDLINE

Youll need to enter your Miami Unique ID and password to access these resources from off-campus.

CINAHL Plus
Health Source Nursing 
MEDLINE

You can search all of these databases together by clicking the title of one of them and then following the instructions below.

Above the search boxes, click the link for the database you are currently using. A new screen will appear with a list of all the Ebsco databases available at MU. Place a check in the box next to each of the databases you want to add from the list. Click the "Select" button at the bottom of the list.

Screenshot highlighting the database link positioned above the search boxes  

After you click on a blue article title in your results list, you will be taken to a new page with more detailed information about that specific article. This often includes an abstract, or summary, of the article viewable by scrolling down the page. Reading the abstract is a quick way to determine whether the article answers your research question or not. If it does, you should scroll back to the top of the page and look for buttons that say "PDF Full Text" or "Download" to read the entire article.


For each article, there is a toolbar of icons at the top right of the screen. Clicking these will allow you to:

  • Bookmark icon for temporarily saving an article  Temporarily save the article during your current session. If you close your browser, these items will be lost.
  • Quote marks icon for getting a citation  Cite the article in a variety of citation formats.
  • Floder icon for permanently saving an article in your MyEBSCO account Permanently save the article in a project folder in Ebsco. To use this feature, you will need to first register for a free Ebsco account.
  •  Share the article to your Google Drive, OneDrive, or with anyone using the "Create link" option
  • Download icon  There is also a second way to download the article via this toolbar 
Screenshot highlighting the placement of the article toolbox at the top of the article information page

Video Demo

This video made by my colleague Carrie Girton demonstrates the written steps below. Please note that she is starting from the research guide from a different NSG course, so the initial steps will look slightly different from this guide. After clicking the link to the CINAHL database in the box above, the steps are the same.

Module 2: Evidence Based Practice Searching


PubMed for your Literature Review

Enter your terms in the search box. On the left side of the results list, you'll have options to limit to articles published within a specific date range, and by type of article (such as randomized controlled trial).

Publication date range limit option in PubMed
 
Limit by article type options in PubMed
 
Additional limiting options are available by scrolling down the left menu and clicking on the grey Additional Filters box. These options include article language, sex and age of participants in the study, and restricting the results to human or animal studies.
 
Additional filters button and the list of options under it
 

To get to an article, click on the title. Then look in the upper right-hand corner for a section called "Full text links" (the links will vary with each article).  If you see links other than the "Find It!" button, then click one of those to get to the full text of the article. If the "Find It!" button is the only option, then click it. It will search all of our other resources to see if we have access to full text.

Screenshot of full text options available for an article in PubMed

Here is a detailed tutorial about using PubMed. Open the video in YouTube to see individual chapters and skip to the specific sections that interest you. (Click "Show More" in the video description to see the chapters)