Once you have analysed your question, worked out what information you have, what you already know and where the gaps in your knowledge are, you are ready to start searching.
Working out your key words is the first step in searching for information. You can use key words to:
In the boxes below, are some basic techniques for searching in academic databases. The examples used are based on the assignment question used in the breaking down your assignment page:
Identify the three principles of Te Tiriti O Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) and discuss each principle describing a relevant nursing strategy that will contribute to culturally safe practice.
Databases are similar to a library in that each database has a collection of different items of information. Unlike Google, where you can ask a question, databases search through the information they have stored for the words you have entered into the search bar. This means that if you type in a full question, the database will get confused because there are too many words to search for. It also means that you need to spell the key words correctly, because the database will search for exactly what you type in.
Many articles will be behind a paywall. UCOL subscribes to certain databases, but not all. If an article is not covered by the UCOL subscription, don't give up because you may be able to access it through a different source. See the Accessing the article tab for how to do this.
To locate the databases, go to the Online Resources tile on the library webpage. Click on Databases.
This will then take you to a page listing all the databases UCOL subscribes to. Notice that under each database is a description of the type of resources it holds. For the purpose of this guide, we will concentrate on EBSCOHost Databases. However, note that the search strategies are basically the same for the other databases.
Remember to work out your keywords before you start searching. Enter one or two into the search bars.
For the purposes of this search, we will concentrate on two key words/phrases: nursing practice and cultural safety.
Notice that as you start typing, suggestions will appear. If there is one that matches your search, click on that, then Search.
Now choose cultural safety in nursing. Notice your key words are in bold font in the titles that appear.
In addition to using the key word search, you can also use the Boolean Operators to guide the search by clicking on AND, OR, NOT.
Clicking on AND will tell the database you want both key words in the search.
Clicking on OR will tell the database to look for either of the key words.
Clicking on NOT will tell the database not to search for that term. This is useful when a lot of irrelevant articles are found. For example, when searching for nursing sources, you probably want human nursing, not vet nursing. By clicking on NOT and putting veterinary nursing into the search bar, the database will remove any nursing articles related to vet nursing.
In addition to using key words, you can use a phrase search. If you were to put nursing practice into the search bar, the database would search for both of those words on their own. This may produce some articles that are not relevant to your topic.
By putting quotation marks around the words "nursing practice" the database will look for these words together. This can change the articles the database finds. They may be more relevant to your topic.
It is likely that you may get more articles than you can possibly read. Many of them may be irrelevant, too old, or not specific enough. This is where the limiters are invaluable. You can use the limiters to refine your search. Limiters are found on the left hand side of the page in EBSCOhost databases. In other databases, they may be slightly different, but work in the same way.
The results will update with each change you make.
The date can be changed by either re-entering the year in the boxes, or using the slide bar.
The subject: major heading can be useful to break down a broad topic into more specific information. Each subtopic will have a number in brackets after it. This number is the quantity of articles the databased holds on that subtopic. Click on show more for a more comprehensive list.
The subject: thesaurus term is also useful if you are struggling to find key words. Again click on show more to get a longer list of terms.
You can also limit by country (geography) or language. Have a play around and see what you can find.
There are a few other little tricks that can help you refine your search when you are getting too many results, or expand your search when you are not getting enough choice.
These can be found by clicking on ? beside the Search icon.
The Advanced Search Guide:
Scroll down the page until you come to Searching on the left hand column. The most useful limiters/expanders are the truncation symbols.
The asterisk:
* the asterisk is an expander that matches multiple characters. It can be used in the middle of a word, the end of a word or in between two words.
Asterisk examples:
In the middle of a word: hea*one will search for headphone, headstone, healthone, hearthstone, heartstone, heatherstone.
At the end of a word: comput* will search for computer, computers, computing, computation, computations, computational.
Between two words: midsummer*dream will search for midsummer night's dream, midsummer day's dream.
The Hash:
# the hash is useful in the middle of a word where there may be different spellings.
Hash example:
colo#r will search for color (US spelling), and colour (NZ spelling)
The question mark
? this is used to find words that are spelt the same except for one character.
Question mark examples:
ne?t will search for next, neat, nest.
When you click SEARCH, you will see a list of articles on cultural safety in nursing. To find out about the article, click on the title.
This page contains information about the article. The most important part is the abstract (see blue arrow). Before reading the article, read the abstract (a summary of the article) to see if the article will be useful for your topic. You can use up a lot of precious time reading articles that are not relevant to your specific topic. Avoid this by reading the abstract first.
Once you have read the abstract and have decided you want to read the article, look for the pdf icon in the left margin as in the example above. If there is a pdf icon, click on that and you will be taken directly to the full article.
If there is no pdf icon, you will need to click on full text finder. This will give you a series of options to try to access the article. Work through each of the options before you give up. It does not take long.
The above example gives you several options to try:
1. Other UCOL databases - you may be able to access the article in the OVID database. If this does not work, try
2. Search the library catalogue - the article may be available in an online journal that UCOL subscribes to. If this does not work, try
3. Google Scholar - the article may have been made available by a university as open access.
If all these options fail, click on ILL (Inter-library Loan).
Inter-library Loan (ILL)
When all the full text finder options are unsuccessful, clicking on the ILL form option will take you to an online form. The information about the article is already filled out. All you need to do is fill in your personal details and click submit. This will go one of the librarians who will try to access the article from another library. If successful, this will result in the librarian either sending you a pdf of the article, or an email requesting you to visit the library to pick up a hard copy of the article. This is a worthwhile option as our librarian is successful most of the time. Do allow a couple of days for the request to be actioned.
