Access to Practical Nursing (APN) & Practical Nursing LibGuide 2025

Creating a research strategy is always a good idea. It will help you:

1. Focus on developing a good thesis statement;

   • Are you using null hypothesis. For example, in a clinical trial of a new anti-hypertensive drug, the null hypothesis would state that there is no difference in effect when comparing the new drug to the current standard treatment. You would have to gather data that indicated the that was not the case, thereby disproving the null hypothesis  

2. Develop an effective research plan;

3. Equips you with the ability to discuss your information needs with librarians and others who will help you in locating the information you need; 

4. Start developing a list of keywords and keyword phrases to use in your search;

5. Develop a plan to manage the information you discover and incorporate it into your assignment (OCtopus), and 

6. Resulting in better manage your time;

Documenting your searches

It's good practice to document and save your search results and methods for how you found your information. By saving your search results in one place, you can re-run, edit or share your results and strategies with other people and keep a thorough record of your review process.

Managing your references

Reference management could include a journal, Word document, Spreadsheet, or Bibliographic Management software.  Make sure to record the following bibliographic metadata.

• Author(s)

• Title of:

  • Article and Journal

  • Book 

  • Webpage

  • Streaming Video

• Date of publication 

• Pagination

• Volume Issue (Number) of Journal

• Digital Object Identifier (doi)

• URL