All assignments involving research and journal articles start with asking questions about things that are important to you.
You can use research assignments to learn more about the world you're committing yourselves to from people who are already working hard to improve care for their patients.
Ask yourself a question or two to help you choose a topic for your assignment:
You will need to find two research articles for your assignment, but not all articles in a nursing journal are research articles. This guide will show you the best database to locate these articles, but first, let's define what you're looking for.
Research articles discuss work that nurses are doing to better care for their patients, improve how they practice, or explore societal factors that impact nursing.
After these articles are written, they are peer reviewed by other nurses to ensure the research approaches and writing are good quality and could benefit other nurses. Nursing is a field that requires evidence to make decisions, so learning how to find and read research articles is crucial.
Here are links to two great examples of research articles:
This tab shows you differences between nursing journals, which are more scientific and used to inform nursing practice and decisions implemented by hospitals, and nursing magazines, which are meant for nurses to more casually learn about industry trends.
Both of these are great for a practicing nurse to read. For most nursing research assignments though, you will need to use articles from nursing journals. Your professor has a peer review requirement for this assignment, so click the other tab to make sure the journal article you're looking at went through review.
| Scholarly Nursing Journal | Nursing Trade Magazine | |
|---|---|---|
| Content |
|
|
| Purpose | To share information within the nursing community which helps determine evidence-based practices | Keeps nurses up to date about industry news, trends, and products |
| Author | Medical professionals- noted as letters attached to names: EX: RN, APRN, DNP, MSN, PhD, MD, etc. | Typically nurses- Noted as letters attached to names: EX: RN, APRN, DNP, MSN |
| Audience | Nurses and other health professionals | Nurses |
| Reviewed by | Editorial board composed of nurses, nurses who read and critique article submissions (peer reviewers) | Staff editors who are mostly nurses but may also come from other backgrounds, like communication |
| Citations |
|
Sometimes there are citations but there usually aren't many |
This tab will help you understand the type of journal article you are looking at and whether it will work for your assignment. These article descriptions are tailored to nursing journals specifically and aren't meant for assessing a nursing magazine article.
| Article Type | Description | Peer Review |
|---|---|---|
| Research Article | Also called: Original Research, Research Report, These are very structured- Begins with an abstract, and always include introduction, methods, discussion, and conclusion sections. |
Yes |
| Commentary | These are more like opinion pieces addressing either an issue in nursing or sharing thoughts about a recent article. These can be opinion pieces or peer- reviewed arguments backed by literature. |
Sometimes |
| Editorial | These are written by a journal editor and might discuss a current event, disease, or issue important to the editor and nursing community. | No |
| Review |
There are two potential types:
|
Yes |
| Case Study | These are discussions about individual patient experiences or disease treatments. These also have citations and bibliographies but don't have the same parts as a research article. | Yes |
| Viewpoint | Strictly opinions or stories from or about nurses. | No |
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