An Online Tutorial brought to you by

Pilgrim Library

CINAHL:

Tips and Tricks

Watch this tutorial if you:

Want to learn

how to use

CINAHL more

effectively

Think searching

in CINAHL is

tricky

Are a nursing or

health-related

major

Get the most out of the tutorial

1. Access CINAHL • Go to the library homepage

(http://library.defiance.edu)

• Click on Databases A – Z

• Scroll down to C

• Click on CINAHL (Nursing, Allied Health, Consumer Health) Plus

2. Follow the directions in the yellow boxes

Click to continue!

See things for yourself – follow along!

On the Agenda

Once you get to the CINAHL database, focus on the

areas of the page that are circled in orange below.

We’ll go through these cool features one at a time.

Lists all the journals,

magazines, etc. that are

included in CINAHL.

Click on Publications!

Publications

This is a helpful page because:

•You can see what journals will be

included in your searches

•You can see what years are included for

each particular journal

•You can search by subject and see what

journals cover your topic and will be

likely to come up in your searches

•You can create an RSS journal alert that

will notify you when new content from a

particular journal is added to the

database.

You can also use the Publications tab to

search within one specific journal.

Type “American Journal of Nursing”

into the search box and click Browse.

Let’s try a sample Publication

search for the American

Journal of Nursing.

Click on the blue hyperlinked

title of this journal.

We can see that the American Journal

of Nursing is covered in this database

from 1937 to present. Impressive, right?

Note though that it says “bibliographic

records.” This means that the citation

information for each article should be

listed, but the full-text may not

necessarily be provided. Some titles will

specify a range for complete full-text

coverage.

You can also click on a year and then a volume

to browse through any given journal, just like

you would flip through the print journal.

You can click here to search all volumes and

issues of this journal. It will bring up a normal

search box with the title of the journal written

in. Just add the word “and” followed by your

subject keywords.

Jumping to the Main Search Page

Click on New Search to return to

the main search page!

Starting fresh at the main search page is

easy. You can click the back button of

your Internet browser or use this handy

little shortcut.

CINAHL Headings

Think of this as the “behind the

scenes” section of the database.

It’s basically a terminology

dictionary; you look up a topic

and see what terms the database

uses to describe your subject.

Confused? Click to learn more…

Why use subject headings?

What is the image to the left? Soda? Pop? Coke? Refreshing cola?

That’s the problem with database

searching – or searching in general. If the

people that organized things use a

different vocabulary than you do, it’s

going to be hard to find what you want!

The CINAHL Headings section can help.

Think of it as your guide to CINAHL’s language.

If you use the headings they suggest, your search

effectiveness should increase.

CINAHL Headings

Type therapy into the box and click browse.

Make sure that relevancy ranked is selected.

Sample heading search: therapy

You can see what terms the database assigns to your

topic. Using these terms will bring back the best

search results.

You can click to Explode a term and see its

subcategories. Or you can click Major

Concept or Scope to learn more about what

the term includes.

Feel free to explore more or try some sample searches!

When you’re ready to move on, click on New Search at

the top to return to the home page.

You can select more than one term by checking multiple

boxes. If you want your search to look for BOTH or ALL

terms, combine selections with and. If you want your search

to look for one term or another, but not necessarily both,

then select or. Then click Search Database.

Evidence-Based Care Sheets

Search by subject or browse

alphabetically for evidence-

based care sheets

Search by subject keyword or scroll

through alphabetically.

Once you find the topic that

interests you, click to check the box

to the right of your topic and click

search.

Feel free to explore more or try some sample searches!

When you’re ready to move on, click on New Search at

the top to return to the home page.

More

Click on Cited References.

There are several helpful tools hidden under the More tab:

• Quick Lessons: Short fact sheets on various procedures and conditions

• Cited References: Cool feature that lets you see who has cited a given article

• Images: Search for images that have been included in articles

• Indexes: The ultimate list of what is included in the database

Let’s explore the Cited References option a little more.

Let’s try this out! We’ll check if any other articles have cited the article

Clinical ethics and nursing: 'Yes' to caring, but 'no' to a female ethics of care from the

journal Bioethics in 1995.

Cited References

Enter “Clinical Ethics and Nursing” into the Cited

Title box, Bioethics into the Cited Source box and

“1995” into the Cited Year Box. Click Search.

Bingo! The article we searched for comes up right away. Now we’re

going to tell the database to see who’s been citing this article. When

we run our next search, all the things brought up will have included

this article in their list of references.

Click to put a check mark in the box at the left of the

correct article. Click the Find Citing Articles button.

This search will list out all of the articles

that cite the Oxygen Consumption article.

This feature can help you see how esteemed or

influential an article has been. Remember, though,

that it only references articles within CINAHL.

From this page you can access or request full-text,

organize by creating a folder, or launch another cited

reference search.

Feel free to explore more or try some sample searches!

When you’re ready to move on, click on New Search at

the top to return to the home page.

Sign In

Registering for an account with EBSCO CINAHL

can be a great way for you to keep your research

process organized. Plus, signing in gives you some

great additional features.

When you create an EBSCO account, you’ll be asked

to give your name and email address. Then you’ll

create a username and password that you’ll use to log

into your EBSCO account. It’s that easy!

Why register and log in?

• When you don’t log in, the database can’t remember who you

are and what you’re searching for – so if you accidentally close

the window, sometimes you lose all your work! Logging in can

prevent this.

• You can easily save your progress to a folder and return later;

the database will help you stay organized during your research

process.

• You can create alerts to notify you when your favorite journal

issues a new volume, or you can create and save a search and

have the database notify you when it retrieves something new.

This is an example of an EBSCO folder.

Options to the left help organize saved settings.

Individuals articles that have been added to the folder are listed in the

middle. These articles can be easily printed, emailed, or saved in lists

simply by marking the check box to the left of the article title.

Folder

CINAHL lets you create folders if you want

to group articles together, or email or save

multiple articles at once - even if you’re not

signed in. Just click Add to Folder next to an

article in your results list. To access your

folder at any time, click on the Folder tab in

the title bar.

Help!

If you get confused,

help is a click away!

There is a good Help

guide within

CINAHL.

Help!

You can also go back to Pilgrim

Library’s website and get in touch

with one of your librarians!

Use the chat box or text, call, or

email! Just ASK!

Choose Databases

Click on Choose Databases!

CINAHL is provided by a company named EBSCO. EBSCO

actually provides dozens of databases to Defiance College. You

can normally tell when you’re searching an EBSCO database

because they look very similar to CINAHL.

The Choose Databases feature allows you to select and search in

more than one of these databases at one time.

This lists out all of the EBSCO

databases. To search more than

one database with one search,

simply click and check the box

next to the databases you wish to

add.

This is a great way to broaden a

search or find information for

multi-disciplinary topics. To learn

what a database includes, hold

your mouse over the little speech

bubble to the right of the

database’s name.

When you’re ready to move on, close the window

(click on the X) to return to the home page.

Congratulations!

You successfully finished the library tutorial

CINAHL: Tips & Tricks

If you have any questions about this tutorial,

please get in touch with Pilgrim Library or

email adearmond@defiance.edu.

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