Practice Generating Search Terms
Possible terms for book and article searching
Look at the role transition paper grading rubric and use the topics required for your paper to help you generate your search terms. This is not an exhaustive list, but examples include:
- nurs* role
- "role change" or "role transition" (using quotes ensures that the words get searched as an exact phrase)
- nursing profession* (catalog keyword search)
- change theory and role theory
- professional transition* or occupational transition*
- professional practice and nursing
- registered nurse*
- nursing vocational guidance
- career mobility (catalog search on Career Mobility as a Medical Subject Heading - because it is a medical subject heading, the books found relate to healthcare fields)
[* is a truncation symbol, which will help get variations on the endings of words. Examples: nurs* gets nurse, nurses, or nursing
theor* gets theory, theories, or theoretical]
Try different combinations of them. Can you come up with other relevant terms or synonyms? Hint: In the article databases, look at the "Subjects" listed under the article citations. In the catalog, under the "Details" tab, look at the linked "Subjects" and/or "Medical Subjects".
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Subject Encyclopedias - good for definitions and an overview of a concept (background information)
- Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Search hundreds of scholarly, subject-specific reference titles in many topic areas, including the arts, business, education, history, the sciences, technology, literature, and the social sciences. Excellent for in-depth overviews of terms or concepts. Search individual e-books or whole collections.
- Sage Reference This link opens in a new window
Search and read entries from over one hundred social science and science specialized reference encyclopedias published by Sage.
Nursing & Healthcare Roles and Role Transitions
Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice by Publication Date: 2015, 3rd edition. (eBook version)Only one person can use this at a time. For best results, login to your EBSCOHost account (or create a free EBSCOHost login) and use the menu at the top to save or e-mail pages. This allows you to view the content without preventing others from seeing it. DO NOT DOWNLOAD; this will cause the book to be available to any other users for 72 hours. If you open the PDF file from this link, it will be locked to other users for an unspecified period of time, although not as long as downloading it.
- Occupational Outlook HandbookBureau of Labor Statistics. Find career information on duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations. Note: Tends to use very broad categories, so your specific type of practice may not be mentioned. Only median salary is provided for included fields.
Wright State University Library Catalog Search
Books: Search OhioLINK
OhioLINK Catalog
Search for holdings in participating OhioLINK colleges, Universities, and several Ohio public libraries.
Find Articles for Role Transition Paper
- QuickSearch This link opens in a new window
QuickSearch combines results from many search tools for you to review in one list. Results come from the Wright State catalog and hundreds of library databases including all of our Ebscohost databases, JSTOR, the Web of Science, and others.
- CINAHL This link opens in a new window
Search journal literature related to nursing and the allied health disciplines. Also contains early-release citations for pre-published journal articles.
- SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Search extensively indexed books, monographs, and conference papers. This index features citations with subject headings from a sociology-specific thesaurus designed by expert lexicographers. SocINDEX covers all subdisciplines of sociology such as anthropology, criminology, demography, ethnic, racial, and gender studies, marriage, family, and social structures, and social work.
- APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Indexes psychology literature and related disciplines including psychiatry, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, cognitive science, and linguistics. Includes journals and book chapters. Use Historic PsycINFO to identify literature published as early as the 1920s. Links occur to full-text when available.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Indexes research literature across a wide range of disciplines and formats. Use the library connection to gScholar to get more attached full-text articles.
There are several available options for finding the required elements of information. You will need to draw your information from multiple sources because these sources tend to vary in the level of detail they offer. Many of you probably will not find a pre-existing source that compares your current role to the role of a professional nurse. As the research/writer, it is your responsibility to select several relevant sources that support your own ideas about the role transition and synthesize them in a coherent way.
Ask Us
Questions? Ask your librarian!
How do I get an article if Wright State does not have it?
If you use the 
button and there is no full text, you can request the article for free through interlibrary loan.
More research guides
- NursingGeneral overview of available library and online information sources. Good starting point for your nursing courses throughout your studies at Wright State.
- Citing Your Sources-APASeveral good sources to help you with APA style. The Purdue OWL is particularly recommended for easy to understand examples.