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This page provides a step-by-step description of the process.
Search Strategy Checklist and Tips
This page breaks down the process of conducting a search including; breaking down the topic, identifying search terms, conducting your search, combining terms, and reviewing your results.
- Understanding Research Study DesignsIn order to find the best possible evidence, it helps to understand the basic designs of research studies. The following basic definitions and examples of clinical research designs follow the “levels of evidence.”
The Assignment Calculator breaks down research and writing projects into manageable steps based on your due dates. Each step includes hints and "how-to" links. You can also sign up to get text reminders for each step.
Find Information
Article Databases
- PubMedSearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences (fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, health care systems, and basic sciences). Coverage is from the 1940s to the present. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- Ovid MEDLINESearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences (fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, health care systems, and basic sciences). Ovid MEDLINE is optimized for advanced literature searches. Coverage is from the 1940s to the present.
- Dentistry & Oral Sciences SourceDatabase indexes and abstracts journals, magazines, books and monographs dealing with all aspects of dental and oral sciences. Full text is included for many titles and links out to other databases are provided.
- CINAHL Ultimate (Nursing & Allied Health)Covers nursing and allied health journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations, as well as providing summarized evidence-based resources such as care sheets and quick lessons.
- ScopusSearch for information from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
- Google Scholar (Setup connection to get to PDFs)Use Google Scholar to find articles from academic publishers, professional societies, research institutes, and scholarly repositories from colleges and universities. If you are using from off-campus access, change the "Library Settings" to University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Look for the "FindIt@U of M Twin Cities" links in your Google Scholar search results to access full text and PDFs. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
Drug and Supplement Information
- MICROMEDEXProvides access to drug information resources, including drug identification, packaging information, interaction and contraindication information, drug prices, international formulations, occupational safety sheets, safety in pregnancy, and more.
- Natmed Pro (previously titled Natural Medicines)Natural Medicines provides evidence-based information and ratings on over 90,000 dietary supplements, natural medicines, and integrative therapies. Includes these databases: Foods, Herbs, & Supplements; Health & Wellness; Sports Medicine; Comparative Effectiveness; Manufacturers; Commercial Products; and Medical Conditions.
Evidence-Based Practice and Point of Care Resources
- DynaMedAn evidence-based clinical decision support tool. Contains over 3,000 topic summaries covering diseases, disorders, diagnostics, and drugs with extensive references to journals and practice guidelines.
- Cochrane LibraryThe Cochrane Library consists of a collection of regularly updated evidence-based health care databases. The Cochrane collection is designed to provide information and evidence to support health care decision-making.
Culturally Appropriate Health Care
A person's culture is multifaceted, and culturally appropriate care requires a holistic approach. Some important factors include religious fasting holidays, cultural view of mental illness, and family structure. Taken together, knowledge of these factors can support respectful conversations between providers and patients and enhance the health care experience.
Find information about cultural beliefs, medical issues, and related topics pertinent to the health care of immigrants to the United States. Access relevant information through the Cultural Profiles, Clinical Topics, or multilingual Patient Education sections.
Patient Education
- MedlinePlusMedlinePlus is a consumer health database that has extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over hundreds of diseases and conditions. There are also lists of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and dictionaries, health information in Spanish, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, health information from the media, and links to thousands of clinical trials.
From the American Dental Association, MouthHealthy includes information for patients on dental health topics, nutrition, dental care concerns, and a list of ADA member dentists.
Resources to Educate Your Patients from the National Dental Association (NDA)
The Dental Education Center, our latest collaboration, offers shareable materials that may help you better communicate with your patients about common dental issues. To utilize these informational pages, click on the corresponding tile below, then download/save the PDF to your computer. From there, open the PDF with the PDF viewer of your choice (i.e. Acrobat Reader) and you will be able to edit the contact fields and print the sheet out.
Managing Citations
Using a citation manager can help you to organize your citations and seamlessly create a bibliography at the end of a research paper or manuscript. You can learn about two of the citations mangers commonly used in the health sciences below.
Zotero is a freely available citation manager that allows you to manage your PDFs and create a database of your own citations by importing references or PDFs. Zotero also has a plug-in for MS Word, LibreOffice, or Google Docs which allows you to format papers and bibliographies.
Using Zotero for the first time? Create an account and download the desktop application to get started. See the videos and learn about how Zotero can help you organize your research with the Zotero guides and tutorials.
EndNote desktop is a computer based, desk-top citation manager that is available for purchase with academic pricing through the University Bookstore.
NLM Citation Style
Citing Medicine provides assistance to authors in compiling lists of references for their publications, to editors in revising such lists, to publishers in setting reference standards for their authors and editors, and to librarians and others in formatting bibliographic citations.
- How to Recognize Plagiarism: Tutorials and TestsIndiana University Plagiarism Tutorials and Tests. Includes certification tests which can take up to 2 hours to complete. Many people divide their learning into 4 sessions of about 25 to 30 minutes each. Completing a Certification Test usually takes 5 to 10 minutes.