Nursing Guide

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This guide is a collection of resources that will get you started with research for Nursing projects, connect you with professional reading and NCLEX preparation resources, and help you with APA citations. Stop by the library for further assistance with research for papers, posters, or presentations, and questions about citations and topic development. You can also contact us through phone or email.

Required and optional nursing textbooks we have as eBooks
Quick Access
Nursing Core Competencies

According to the Oregon Consortium of Nursing Education:

"A competent nurse, in making practice decisions, locates, evaluates and uses the best available evidence, coupled with a deep understanding of client experience and preferences, through the understanding that...

  1. There are many sources of knowledge, including research evidence, standards of care, community perspectives, practical wisdom gained from experience, which are legitimate sources of evidence for decision-making.
  2. Knowledge from the biological, social, medical, public health, and nursing sciences is constantly evolving; nurses need to update their knowledge continuously, using reliable, current sources of information.
  3. Nurses need to know how to learn new interventions independently, because the definition of “best practice” of interventions is continuously modified, and new interventions are constantly being developed."

This research guide will help you achieve this competency.

Required and optional nursing textbooks we have as eBooks
APA Websites

The Purdue Owl website has good examples of APA citations and references. However, LBCC nursing students are requested by the nursing program to not use information from Purdue Owl for paper formatting and style, and instead look at the title and style page examples provided by the program. For paper style questions, students can also refer to the APA Manual, 6th edition.

The APA Style Blog is the official companion to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). Weekly posts feature discussions on writing and publishing in APA Style. They also provide a great page of APA learning resources.

The Library has a guide to Citations with a page for APA that includes additional resources. 

Using the APA Manual

Knowing APA will be necessary to passing nursing school, and helpful in advanced schooling and employment. The LBCC nursing program likes students to refer to the manual rather than Purdue OWL for accuracy. You can use PERLA and other citation generators, but for peace of mind and to truly understand how a reference is made, you’ll want to use the manual. Also, LBCC nursing program has specific requirements for paper formatting: for a sample title page, paper, and grading rubric, refer to your nursing newsletter/policies and procedures document.  

For an excellent overview, read the Introduction in your APA manual; it's only five pages. Watch this space for a video coming soon on using the manual!

Writing Center

While there is no Writing Center branch in Lebanon, don't despair! The LBCC Writing Center has an LBCC Online Writing Lab (OWL) that will review online submissions of your papers. Make sure to submit your paper at least 48-72 working-day hours in advance. You can also schedule an appointment with them on the Albany Campus or view their helpful handouts online. Don't forget: the library can help you with citations too!

HOC Library APA Resources

The books listed can be checked out from the HOC Library. 

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. LB2369 .P83 2010

This is the official APA manual used by LBCC's nursing program. 

APA the easy way! BF76.7 .H68 2009

Short, with to-the-point examples of citations and references. 

Mastering APA style: student's workbook and training guideBF76.8.G452 2010

APA/MLA guidelines for students:  a 3 page digital guide that you can access from home, with easy guidelines for using APA. 

 

Finding articles in the library
When doing library research for nursing articles, you will usually look in a database. Journals in the library usually aren't purchased individually, but as part of database packages with multiple journals, like a grab bag. When a journal is in a database, all its articles are in the database too, and each article is searchable. You can search by keyword, subject, author, journal title, article title, date, etc. Many of these articles will be full-text, which means you can download and read them immediately. For ones that aren't full-text by have a short summary, you can easily request the article and it will be emailed to you in 1-3 business days. 
Nursing/Medical Databases: Best Choices
Other Health Databases
Health databases for patients and the public
CINAHL tutorial
About CINAHL

CINAHL is one of the definitive research tools for nursing and allied health professionals, and you'll encounter it at the associate and bachelor levels, and in professional life. It provides full text for many nursing and allied health journals, including  publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses Association. In addition, CINAHL offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, full-text evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, and more. CINAHL Subject Headings follow the structure of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) used by the National Library of Medicine.

Working on your Nursing 101 research table and paper and need a nursing journal? Here are step-by-step tips

Using CINAHL Limiters

Limiters are what you use to narrow down your search, or to find a specific item. Here are several limiters useful to know for LBCC for assignments.

  • Full-text
  • Peer-reviewed
  • Publication Date
  • Research article
  • Any Author is Nurse
  • Journal Subset
  • Geographic Subset
  • Special Interest
Ebooks and practice tests online
Professional development
NCLEX Books in the Library

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