Starting A Journal Club: Finding an article

Finding a Research Article to Appraise

Here is a list of things to think about when choosing an article for Journal Club.:

• Use a peer reviewed journal
• Aim for a Randomised Controlled Trial.
• Try to select a topic that answers a clinical question or can be directly applied to practice.
• Use current literature (published within the last 5 years.)
• Select an article that has not been appraised previously by the group

Conduct a search with a Database or Journal

Using the library to locate a current research article will ensure that you are searching evidence based literature. Click on eLibrary to choose from a selection of electronic resources. Medline, Science Direct or CINAHL are excellent resources to search and can be accessed through our Databases A-Z page.

Scroll down the page for examples of how to conduct a search or contact the library to request training in sourcing a suitable article for appraisal.

EBSCO Medline Search Example

To conduct a search in EBSCO Medline or CINAHL follow these steps:

1. Think about your topic and appropriate keywords
2. Think about any synonyms that could be used to ensure all aspects of the topic are covered. For example you may need to search Aboriginal OR Indigenous to retrieve all results to do with Aboriginal Australians.
3. Join like terms (synonyms) with OR and join different terms with AND to refine search results.
4. Refine your results through filters such as date, subject and geography etc. or use the advanced filter options to refine by study type.

Science Direct Search Example

To conduct a search in Science Direct follow these steps:

1. Go to the Science Direct Advanced Search page
2. Using the search terms in the previous example in the 'Title, Abstract or Keywords' field enter your search terms joined with any Boolean operators (AND, OR) as mentioned above. e.g. (aboriginal OR indigenous) AND osteomyelitis AND outcomes
3. Refine your results through filters such as date.