Literature Review for Nursing Students

Reviewing of the Literature (LR)

• This lecture is about reviewing literature for nursing students

• Objectives of the lecture:

  • Identifying the purpose of literature review
  • Outlining sources of literature review
  • Describing strategies for searching literature
  • Discussing how to write a literature review
  • Demonstrating styles for writing references

• Introduction:

  • A literature review analyses and synthesises information from research studies, books, dissertations, articles, conference proceedings, and other similar materials relevant to a particular topic.

• Purposes of Literature Review:

  • Understanding existing knowledge on a topic
  • Defining the research problem
  • Classifying sources of information (classic and recent)
  • Developing the methodology for a study
  • Identifying successes and mistakes of prior research

• Literature Sources:

  • Primary sources: Original accounts of research studies written by the researchers. Often found in journal articles (e.g. Nursing Research, Advances in Nursing Science)
  • Secondary sources: Summaries or descriptions of studies written by someone other than the original investigators
  • Grey literature: Reports, conference proceedings, standards, technical documentation, government documents, fact sheets, and policy briefs.

• Search Strategies:

  • Defining a clear research question
  • Identifying specific terms or phrases (e.g., induce, labor, morning, evening, pregnancy, birth, labor, childbirth, delivery)
  • Determining if time period (e.g., past 5 or 10 years) is important
  • Using search options and limiters (e.g., using "and," "or," "not," exact phrases, without a specific word, date range, language, including references, audience, URL, research type, age, and peer review).
  • Consulting a librarian for database research assistance (e.g., CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane, Ovid Nursing, Joanna Briggs EBP, PsychINFO, ProQuest, Dissertations & Theses databases, Science Direct, and Scopus are useful to nursing researchers)

• Search Strategy Cycle:

  • Focus on the research question
  • Identify key concepts and synonyms (e.g., using MeSH on demand tool)
  • Use the appropriate database(s)
  • Use Boolean operators (and/or/not) and apply inclusion/exclusion criteria
  • Save search results
  • Manage citations and references using software (e.g., EndNote)

• Writing the Literature Review:

  • Organizing information from a comprehensive literature search
  • Identifying central research topic information
  • Analyzing strengths and weaknesses related to arguments in the study

• Extracting Information from Literature Sources

  • Analyzing and interpreting pertinent material taken from sources

• Critiquing the Literature Review in a Research Article

  • Carefully review citations for potential additional sources
  • This parallel searching should be conducted by a researcher or someone in their research team

• Components of a Literature Review:

  • Introduction
  • Body of the review
  • Suggestions for further research
  • Summary

• Citations:

  • Crucial for every research project
  • Applying appropriate citation standards and styles

• Plagiarism:

  • Taking other researchers' or scholars' work without proper attribution
  • Avoid plagiarism. Always properly cite work

• APA Style:

  • Standardized citation format in scientific and social scientific disciplines; including nursing
  • Two types:
    • In-text citation
    • Reference citation

• Various examples of citations in APA style (single, two, three to seven, and more than seven authors)

  • Examples of short and long quotations
  • Paraphrasing

• Major sections in a paper:

  • Title page (title, author, affiliation, and institutional affiliation)
  • Headers (shortened versions of paper title)
  • Abstract (brief summary of paper)

• Essential to utilize citation software

This quiz focuses on the essential components of conducting a literature review tailored for nursing students. Explore the objectives, sources, methodologies, and writing styles involved in synthesizing research information. Gain insights into understanding existing knowledge and the importance of the literature review process in nursing research.