2. Aims and Objectives
In this session we’ll be developing our literature searching skills towards the
ultimate goal of undertaking a literature review.
During the session we will:
• Discuss the use of literature reviews in evidence based practice.
• Develop techniques for effective and thorough literature searching
• Explore some specialist sources for finding research articles
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4. What is a Literature review?
A literature review is a search and evaluation of the available literature in
your given subject or chosen topic area. It documents the state of the art
with respect to the subject or topic you are writing about. ... It surveys
the literature in your chosen area of study.
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5. A literature review has four main
objectives:
• It surveys the literature in your chosen area of study
• It synthesises the information in that literature into a summary
• It critically analyses the information gathered by identifying gaps
in current knowledge; by showing limitations of theories and points
of view; and by formulating areas for further research and reviewing
areas of controversy
• It presents the literature in an organised way
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6. • A literature review shows your readers that you have an in-depth grasp of
your subject; and that you understand where your own research fits into
and adds to an existing body of agreed knowledge.
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7. Doing a literature review
• A key part of the research process
• It can be the starting point for further research – “sets
the scene”, what do we already know? What’s
unknown? And/or for application to practice, decision-
making – what is the “evidence base”, what does the
evidence say?
• (Looking ahead… you will be doing this for your
dissertation in year 3!)
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8. Key points to remember
• Here are some things to bear in mind when researching and writing your
literature review.
• It is not a descriptive list.
• It is not a book by book and article by article summary.
• It is not a survey of every single thing that’s ever been written about your topic.
• It must be defined by a guiding concept i.e. essay question, research project or
objective.
• It must tell the reader what knowledge and ideas have been established and
agreed in your area and outline their strengths and weaknesses.
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10. VET2204 ‘Appraising and Using
Evidence For Practice’
What is ‘Evidence’?
“Information or signs indicating whether something is true or
valid”
Compact Oxford Dictionary for Students (2006)
As you know, you need to provide appropriate evidence to
support any claims or arguments made in your assignments.
But what about ‘For practice’?
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11. Evidence-Based Practice
“…involves the conscientious use of current best evidence in making decisions
about patient care…”
Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: a guide to best practice (2005)
‘Evidence-based decisions combine clinical expertise, the most relevant and best
available scientific evidence, patient circumstances and owners’ values. This is what
we mean by Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM).’
RCVS (2017) ‘What is EBVM?’ https://knowledge.rcvs.org.uk/evidence-based-veterinary-medicine/what-is-
ebvm/
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12. Where’s the evidence?
• Clinical guidelines and practice protocols/procedures are
informed by research findings
• High quality, peer-reviewed research – reported in journal
articles
• Articles can be found using specialist subject databases (search
engines)
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14. Search Strategies
• There should be a search strategy which aims to ensure that searches will pick up as many
relevant research papers as possible, which meet your criteria.
• Thorough – ensure you don’t miss relevant studies
• As unbiased as possible
• Transparent
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15. Combining your keywords
• Databases and search-engines allow you to combine several
different keywords at once using AND or OR
• The purpose of this is that you can be very specific as to whether
the words MUST appear in your results or whether they are a
range of alternatives
• This is known as Boolean searching
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16. OR
OR = MORE
You can use OR to expand a
search in order to get MORE
results
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17. AND
AND = Less
AND requires all of the terms to
be present
AND makes your search results
smaller
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18. NOT
You use NOT to exclude certain
results.
But it is tricky! Use with
EXTREME caution!
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19. Let’s give that a go!
Activity 1
I’m going to say a word and I want you to stand up if it
applies to you
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21. Let’s give it a try!
Activity 2. Keyword creation
What is the role of the veterinary nurse in the
prevention and management of canine obesity?
What concepts might we build our search around?
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22. What is the role
of the
veterinary nurse
in prevention
and
management of
canine obesity?
Canines
Obesity
Prevention
/
manageme
nt
- Dogs/Dog
- Canine
- Canids (Canis lupus familiaris)
- Ages?
- Breeds?
- Obese
- Overweight
- Weight management
- Weight loss
- Fat
- Healthy weight /Unhealthy
weight
- Related conditions, e.g.
diabetes, osteoarthritis- Diet
- Nutrition
- Food / feeding
- Exercise
- Attitudes (owners, professionals)
- Education / adviceVET2204
27. Distinguishing between primary and
secondary research
• Primary sources - original research written up and published by
the researchers in peer-reviewed journals
• The title may mention the type of research e.g. ‘a qualitative study’, ‘a
controlled trial’
• Includes sections such as methods, results, discussion
• Secondary sources – work that summarises, critiques or reviews
primary research
• e.g. A literature review, a systematic review
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28. Evaluation of sources
• Currency
• Relevancy
• Authority
• Accuracy
• Purpose
• We’ll look at two of those in particular
• Currency & Authority
Presentation title
29. How can you judge Authority of
academic journal articles?
Presentation title
- Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor?
- What are the author's credentials or organizational affiliations?
- Is the author qualified to write on the topic?
- Is there contact information, such as a publisher or email address?
- Do any URL’s reveal anything about the author or source? examples: .com
.edu .gov .org .net
30. How can you judge Currency of
academic journal articles?
Presentation title
When was the information published or posted?
Has the information been revised or updated?
Does your topic require current information, or will older sources
work as well?
Are any links functional?
31. Evaluating Resources
Let’s give it a go!
• Get yourselves into groups of 4 or 5
• You have 2 cards for every type of resource (book, journal, webpage, wiki,
twitter etc)
• In your groups discuss and rank each resource under the headings currency
and authority from most to least
Presentation title
32. Activity 3: Evaluating resource types
Currency Authority
Tweet Tweet
TV News Report TV News Report
Text Book Text Book
Journal Article Journal Article
Presentation title
MOSTTOLEAST
35. Google Scholar http://scholar.google.co.uk/
You may be able to
access the full-text
here
Refine your
search results
here
Create an alert
for your search,
so you can keep
up-to-date with
new publications
http://libguides.mdx.ac.uk/BuiltEnvironment/Internet
37. Beyond Librarysearch – other places to search
• Databases (MyUniHub > My Study > My Library > Databases)
• NEW! VetMed - £8280 per year
• Science Direct
• Medline / PubMed (you can limit to Veterinary Medicine/Science)
• Web of Science
• CINAHL / British Nursing Index for nursing topics (e.g. theories, models, care planning…)
• Individual journals specific to your topic
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Slido Code
H379
38. VetMed
- Our new resource for
Vetinary Nurses.
- Costs £8280 per year.
- Many full text articles, but
also many abstracts..
- Limited concurrent users.
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40. Activity 4
• Let’s try that out.
• Go to VetMed and try undertaking a Boolean search using the keywords
we’ve found for our question.
• We want to find material to answer:
What is the role of the veterinary nurse in the prevention and
management of canine obesity?
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A literature review is a search and evaluation of the available literature in your given subject or chosen topic area. It documents the state of the art with respect to the subject or topic you are writing about. ... It surveys the literature in your chosen area of study.
Emphasis on decision making and keeping knowledge up to date: Without the support of evidence – expertise can deteriorate and practice becomes outdated.
Worth asking if the students know what peer review is
Boolean stand-up/sit-down game to get the students moving around. If any mobility issues exist then raising hands works too.
Pass out the handout for the students to work on. They can use thesauri and other tools if tyhey wish and can confer if they wish but each student has their own handout.
Group activity… in groups of 4/5
Find journal articles, theses, books, and more, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Search across many disciplines
Locate the full-text document through your library or on the web
Keep up with recent developments in any area of research
Save items in a personal library
