Many university and TAFE library's have dedicated Nursing and Midwifery LibGuides (Library Resource Guides) to assist with assignment writing
Copyright © Dunk 2005
Grey literature* is generally considered material not published commercially or indexed by major databases (black literature).
It is not usually peer-reviewed, but can be good, reliable information. It can appear in many forms, including government or technical reports, discussion papers, statistics, conference proceedings and policy documents.
*The term 'grey' refers to the uncertainty of the status of this information.
Information is everywhere! It's just so easy to Google and use something that looks relevant... so why cant you just Google?
From RMIT University Library (2019), this animation provides key points about why you need to be critical when finding information on the internet.
Google Scholar can be a good place to start if you are unfamiliar with a subject area.
Use Google Scholar search tips to refine results.
Set up your Library Links in Google Scholar.
Results will mostly be citations with no full text.
Do not pay for any articles, always check with the Library.
What are scholarly & peer reviewed journals?
Scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles are written by someone with expert knowledge or academic qualifications, are evidence-based, include references and are aimed at a scholarly audience.
The articles go through an extensive editorial process before publication, and are therefore of a very high quality. Not all scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
SCImago Journal Rank attempts to provide objective rankings of journal titles according to their influence in the scholarly community. SCImago ranks journals based on the impact of papers they publish, accounting for the number of citations received and the ranking of journals where these citations came from. While ranking systems based on citation data rather than judgment are inevitably flawed (Hicks & Wolters, 2015), SCImago still provides a good overview of the most highly regarded journal titles according to discipline, sub-discipline and country. Provided are links to the highest ranked nursing journals nationally and internationally.
CINAHL Ultimate offers full-text of these following highly-ranked nursing & midwifery journals:
What is Open Access?
Open access (OA) means unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research. Open Access is primarily intended for scholarly journal articles, but is also provided for a growing number of theses, book chapters and scholarly monographs
Try the following tools or resources to assist in locating quality versions of peer-reviewed journal articles.
Peer reviewed open access journal titles:
Looking for evidence to support best practice in line with the Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards?
A PubMed live search will find articles from the last 5 years with a focus on the hospital setting. Click on 'more search options' in any box for specific subsets including: broader coverage of the topic, Australian focus, or Reviews
University of South Australia explains how to evaluate websites using the CRAAP test (Study Help: Evaluating Information, 2017)
Free online tool to encourage critical thinking about the quality of health information
The scale of COVID-19 and the presence of misleading information requires nurses and midwives to exercise their professional responsibility to identify and spread accurate information. (Bin Naeem, Bhatti & Khan, 2020)
For more assistance finding quality articles see the Finding journal articles online library resource guide
Think you have what it takes to be a master of misinformation? Try your hand with our interactive game! It's designed to get you thinking about misinformation and propaganda, what they mean and the impact they can have. Designed by Luke Watsford at Deakin University