As a PhD student within the College of Nursing, you have a dedicated liaison librarian through Laupus Health Sciences Library. My name is Amanda Haberstroh, and you can call me Amanda. I have been at Laupus since January 2018, serving the College of Nursing from my first day. I am a transplant to the Greenville, NC area from Auburn, AL where I lived for 14 years. I hold 4 degrees: a BA in English literature (from the University of North Georgia), an MA and PhD in English (from Auburn University), and an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science, from the University of Arizona). In addition to my 10 years of experience as a graduate student, I was also formerly an English instructor at a community college in Alabama for about 9 years. I taught basic English, composition, and survey literature courses for undergraduates.
I chose librarianship because I wanted to work even more directly with students and other library patrons at what can often be a challenging point: locating strong, scholarly evidence to support a claim. My goal is to ensure that you have access to the tools you need so that you can move forward in your project.
Please use this guide to help you at your challenging point. If there is an area of the guide that is lacking, please let me know. I see it as a living, ever-changing document, and I want it to be useful for you.
Below are descriptions for the tabs that you will find at the top of this guide.
An option to open the chat window is located throughout the guide. Please note: you may be chatting with a different liaison librarian, but they are here to help you too!
How to Search
On this page, you will find information on how to take your research inquiry from a question format to a searchable set of concepts using the PICO(TS) method. Additionally, there is information on how to organize your search terms using concept tables.
Finding the Literature
On this page, you will find helpful information for conducting a search using the following resources: One Search (the library search bar), PubMed (MEDLINE), CINAHL, ProQuest, and Scopus. I demonstrate how to apply limits to ensure that you are seeing the results you expect to see.
Nurse Theorists and Theories
Information on this page will assist you in locating information about nurse theorists, written by nurse theorists, and how to locate research that uses nursing theories.
Understanding Results
On this page, I delve deeper into the types of results you are likely to pull up when conducting a search through the databases. I discuss the differences between primary and secondary literature, as well as how to evaluate resources based on their levels of evidence.
Measuring Impact
On this page, you will learn about how to find and determine the impact factor of an article or journal. This tab will take you to a new guide.
Citing Results
On this page, you can find resources for how to use citation management software (or CMS) to help you save and cite the results you want to keep. I discuss the options for utilizing different CMS platforms, including RefWorks, as well as where to look for helpful information on common citation styles in the health sciences.
Writing Papers
On this page, I have included useful information for how to reach out to the University Writing Center for additional assistance on the composition of your papers.
Get Help
On this page, you can find the Laupus Library hours, as well as my online office hours.
Please follow the link below to complete a short survey and provide feedback on this guide.