Bio120 assignment (2012)

The BIO 120 assignment is the following.  Students were assigned a species, either a plant or an animal, and they had to look at a picture of it and identify a trait (usually a prominent one) and then find two articles from peer-reviewed journals discussing the evolutionary significance of that trait.  So, for example one student had been assigned a turkey vulture and found articles about how the nostrils/olfactory system evolved in order to detect carrion/food.  Another student was looking for articles about the toxins found in glands  in a mammal called a slow loris.  I believe the students are also to find one of two articles about the natural history of the animal/plant.

I was suggesting the students use BIOSIS or JSTOR .  Also to look at the references list if they find a good article.   The students were also very concerned that the article be peer-reviewed so I was showing them Ulrich’s (hoping Ulrich’s is working today since an email went out that Bowker is down due to Sandy and not sure if Ulrich’s is part of Bowker).

Other general search tips I tell them is:

-          Search the common name along with the latin name

-          The latin name consists of the genus and species (e.g Cathartes aura).  If this does not find any results or too few, then go broader and just search the genus name e.g Cathartes  instead of cathartes aura

-          Think of synonms for the trait or what the trait does (e.g for pit organs of a rattlesnake I was suggesting pit organ* or facial pit* or thermal detect* (since these glands detect heat)

(From Heather)

Qualitative Research Nursing assignment

My email response you can use for Masters of Nursing students looking for qualitative research in CINAHL:

"Hi _______,

I am attaching a handout with some tips for using CINAHL. Feel free to email ask.gerstein@utoronto.ca if you need any assistance with it. [CINAHL 2010 handout is located in the sidebar of the blog])

As for finding qualitative research articles you can copy and paste this text and search for it in CINAHL (**Make sure you UNCHECK the box that says 'Suggest Subject Terms' before searching for this. That will allow it to be searched as a phrase**)

(MH "cluster sample+") or TX life experiences or TX human science or TX discourse* analysis or TX narrative analysis or TX lived experience* or TX field research or TX field studies or TX field study or TX giorgi* or TX husserl* or TX merleau ponty* or TX van kaam* or TX van manen* or TX spiegelberg* or TX colaizzi* or TX heidegger* or TX participant observ* or TX data saturat* or TX semiotics or TX heuristic or TX hermeneutic* or TX etic or TX emic or TX focus group* or TX purpos* sampl* or TX constant comparison or TX constant comparative or TX grounded research or TX grounded studies or TX grounded study or TX grounded theor* or TX phenomenol* or TX ethnon* or TX qualitative or (MH "ethnological research") or (MH "ethnography") or (MH "phenomenology") or (MH "focus groups") or (MH "discourse analysis") or (MH "theoretical sample") or (MH "field studies") or (MH "constant comparative method") or (MH "thematic analysis") or (MH "content analysis") or (MH "observational method+") or (MH "purposive sample") or (MH "qualitative validity+") or (MH "grounded theory") or (MH "ethnonursing research") or (MH "phenomenological research") or (MH "ethnographic research") or (MH "qualitative studies")

This will look for all qualitative studies. If you want to, you can modify it and take out any of the terms that you are not interested in finding.
Then you can combine these results with your search subject terms (__[suggest some relevant terms based on their topic]__) in the search history screen.

These terms were found here: http://www.library.vcu.edu/tml/bibs/nursingevidencefilters.html (scroll to bottom)

There's also a good article on search strategies here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/4/5 for your information."

email dated March 25, 2010