Nursing: Academic Reading and Writing

"Organization is essential as you work from start to finish of your [research] project. Good organization will allow you to see where you have been and help you to see how to proceed.

• Staying organized throughout your research will help you to avoid repeating ineffective searches.
• When it comes to writing your literature review, staying organized will provide you a concise overview of the research you have located, and help you group thoughts and ideas.
• As you write your literature review section you may* need to explain to your readers how you conducted your research.
  • This explanation does not need to be lengthy but you will need to share with your readers the databases and keywords that you used to find your research articles. This information can help future researchers pick up where your research left off."

- Walden University Library, Library Guide to Capstone Literature Reviews: Get & Stay Organized

*Make sure to review your assignment requirements

Use the following organizational tools to help you throughout the literature search process. When you read articles, it's helpful to think about them in the context of your research question, theory, and hypothesis. These documents allow you to compile details about your sources, such as citation information, purpose, methodologies, implications, and critiques. The documents can also help with identifying similarities and themes between articles and authors.

Narrative literature reviews usually appear at the beginning of research or quality improvement articles in order to demonstrate how the current project fills a gap or adds to the scholarly conversation about the issue or problem being addressed.  The literature review may appear as part of the background or Introduction section of the article or it may be labelled as it's own section, depending on the authors' approach and the journal guidelines.

If you want to look at examples of literature reviews in published research articles, try searching CINAHL on a topic of interest and limit to Research articles.  Then look at the beginning of each full text article to see examples of how the study authors cited other sources or research to put their research project into context.

If you don't have a particular topic in mind, here are a few research articles about advanced practice nurses and rural healthcare that you can skim for examples of possible approaches to a literature review.

• Andrilla, C. H. A., Patterson, D. G., Moore, T. E., Coulthard, C., & Larson, E. H. (2020). Projected contributions of nurse practitioners and physicians assistant to buprenorphine treatment services for opioid use disorder in rural areas. Medical Care Research & Review, 77(2), 208–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558718793070 
• Ketel, C., McClure, N., Elkins, T., Kapu, A., & Jones, P. (2024). Advancing nurse practitioner proficiency and confidence: An evaluation of postgraduate training in rural and medically underserved communities. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 36(9), 512–524. https://doi.org/10.1097/JXX.0000000000001036
• Stellflug, S., & Auerbach, D. (2023). Family nurse practitioner autonomy and physician collaboration in rural vs urban settings. Online Journal of Rural Nursing & Health Care, 23(2), 39–55. https://doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v23i2.742

Tools for several different study types are available (including systematic reviews):

Tools that emphasize a particular type of study: