CINAHL EFFECTIVE SEARCHING:

FOLLOW-ALONG TUTORIAL

This presentation will teach you how to better

search for results in CINAHL.

To get the most out of the experience, open up CINAHL and follow along!

What is the difference between basic search and advanced search?

Basic

Basic search is the default homepage for CINAHL and can be fine if you are doing quick searching. It gives you options concerning the type of publication and a

few about the research content.

Advanced SearchFor the most effective CINAHL searching,

the Advanced Search option is key.

Click on Advanced Search.

Advanced search gives you a lot more options!

Advanced

Check this to only search for articles that are available full-text

online at the click of a button.Check this to retrieve only peer reviewed articles from

your searches.Check this to only retrieve research articles from your

searches.

Let’s explore these options!

These options are helpful if you are

looking for a specific article

Scroll through these search limit options!

They pertain specifically to nursing information and can help you focus your

searches.

The Search Box

When you used the advanced search, the database automatically checks this little box. If you try to

search and the box is still checked, the database is going to act like you entered a search under

CINAHL headings. This means that your search will not bring up actual articles – it will try to match

your keywords to the keywords the database uses.

Most of the time, you will want to UNCHECK THIS BOX before searching!

Whether you’re using the basic or advanced search, you can create better searches for

information and articles by using a few simple tricks.

The rest of this tutorial is devoted to these search tips. Remember that these are not limited to

CINAHL – most search engines or databases will allow you to use these nifty little tricks, and they

can save you substantial time!

So we recommend that you follow these steps when searching CINAHL or in most other

databases…

Start Searching

with Purpose!

#1: Know what you want to find

Know your topic

WELL

Determine what types of sources would be most helpful

Know your purpose

Determine what specific information would be

most useful

Books? Articles? Primary sources?

Quotations? Facts? Opinions? Statistics? Experimental data?

#2: Select good keywords

Pull the ‘key’ words from your thesis or topic. These are the ones that really capture the essence of your

subject.

Sample thesis: Hands-on experience is the most crucially important aspect of nursing education.

“hands-on experience” “nursing education”

Sample thesis 2:All levels of staff must cooperate for a health institution to run effectively.

“cooperation” “health institution”“staff”

“hands-on experience”“nursing education”

“staff” “cooperation”

Take your ‘key’ words and come up with possible alternative keywords. Think of:

Synonyms Broader subject terms

Ways in which your term could be narrowed.

practicum

internship

clinical hourson-the-job experience

on-site experienceskill application

nurses

doctorsadministration

institution

organization

hospitalcompany

in-hospital

rounds RNBSN

nursing programs

Teaching nursingNursing classes

health education

collaborationorganizational communication

department coordination

effectiveness

efficiency

sharing

teamworksupport

aid

When you put a phrase into a database or search engine, normally it is searching for those words anywhere in the article – the search engine does not realize that those words are an

item or that they are meant to be together.

For example, when I search for nursing student, I want articles about nursing students – not articles about kindergarten students from the Pediatric Journal of Nursing. The database doesn’t

understand that I meant nursing student to be one search term, so it searches for the words separately.

What if you have key PHRASES instead of key WORDS?

The solution? Quotation marks!

Put quotation marks around your key phrases to tell the database that you want it to search for the words as one entity. Remember, though, that you are telling the database to search for what is in the quotation marks EXACTLY… so if you put “nursing resources”, you’re not going to get back an article that

talks about a nursing resource or nurse resources.

“ ”

This little trick works almost everywhere – even in Google!

#3: Make good search strings

Combine your keywords and make “search strings”

and = narrower search with fewer results

or = wider search with more results

So let’s say you run a search for: “community health nursing”

You would get back all that is in the purple circle. If you don’t like what that search

brought back, you have some easy ways to refine the search

to get back what you really wanted.

All that has been written about “community health

nursing”

If you got back too many results, or if your results were not specific enough --- add another keyword and connect your two keywords with the word AND

“community health nursing”“leadership”

and

If you search with AND, you’re telling the search engine that there are two criteria that must be met in a source. This means you’ll get back fewer results and all of the results should mention BOTH keywords. You’ll only get back the

articles that fall in the middle of the venn diagram.

If you got back too few results, or if your subject is frequently called by multiple names --- add another

keyword and connect your two keywords with the word OR

“community health nursing”“leadership”

or

If you search with OR, you’re telling the search engine that either one OR the other term has to be present in a source. That gives the search more

possibilities and will bring back more results for you. You would get back ALL of the venn diagram if you put in the connector OR.

Examples of good search strings:

“nursing education” or “nursing program”

This search will bring back articles that talk about EITHER nursing education OR nursing program or both.

This search will bring back articles that talk about nursing education AND standards.

“nursing education” and standards

JFK or “John F. Kennedy”

“Butch Cassidy” and “Sundance Kid”

This search will bring back articles that talk about JFK OR John F. Kennedy.

This search will bring back articles that talk about Butch Cassidy AND the Sundance Kid.

Try coming up with some search strings on your own! Run them through a quick google or database search – first as a

single keyword and then as a string. You’ll see the difference in results!

CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE CINAHL EFFECTIVE SEARCHING

TUTORIAL.

We highly suggest that you also view the CINAHL tricks and tips tutorial.

If you have further questions or comments about this tutorial please contact adearmond@defiance.edu