Skip to Main Content
Emory University Emory Libraries

Library Orientation for Nursing

This information was developed for nurses conducting research via the Emory Libraries

Library Terms to Know

Bibliographies (aka References or Works Cited)

A reference list (also known as Works Cited or a Bibliography) should appear at the end of an academic paper. It provides the information for a reader to find any source cited in the paper. Each source cited in the paper must appear in the reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in the text. Source: Purdue Owl 

Article (aka Paper, Study, Published Research)

In the health sciences, an article is usually a work that reports on the results of a research study.  It may also be an essay, guideline, report or other type of publication. Articles tend to be current, narrow in scope and are good for focused treatment of a topic. Scholarly journals contain high-quality articles usually written by experts and use data and statistics to back arguments. Popular magazines and newspapers (such as Newsweek, People, or the New York Times) are good for current treatment of a topic and are good resources for editorials and opinions. Note that popular magazines are not peer-reviewed.  Articles can be found in databases.

Example:

The research study, "Behaviors, movements, and transmission of droplet-mediated respiratory diseases during transcontinental airline flights" is an article.  It was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Database

As used in libraries, the term database refers to digital collections of information.  Databases contain primarily journal articles, but many include images, data and more.  Some have full-text articles; others may supply only the citation and links to full text.

Some databases may have subject content that is multidisciplinary (broad), others may be focused on a specific area (narrow).  While database interfaces may differ, they usually offer basic and advanced search options: you can limit/narrow the search, print, email, & save citations and you can search hundreds of journals at once. Search databases for articles.
 
Examples:
Broad:

Academic Search Complete: Indexes thousands of journals and other publications across broad ranging resources that include full-text journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, and video content.

PubMed: Produced by the National Library of Medicine, this biomedical database includes over 30 million citations in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and preclinical sciences and dates back to 1946.

Narrow:

African-American Poetry:  Collection of poems by African American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Japan Times Digital Archive: The Japan Times Digital Archive covers the complete run (1897–2018) of the English-language daily published in Tokyo.

The 2018 research study, "Behaviors, movements, and transmission of droplet-mediated respiratory diseases during transcontinental airline flights" can be found in both Academic Search Complete and PubMed, but not in African-American Poetry or Japan Times Digital Archive.

Citation

A citation tells readers that certain material in your work came from another source and shows where that material can be located. A citation provides information in a standardized way, typically consisting of the author's name, the article title, where it was published and when. Use a citation to help locate a specific article.
 
Example: 

Hertzberg, V. S., Weiss, H., Elon, L., Si, W., Norris, S. L., & FlyHealthy Research Team (2018). Behaviors, movements, and transmission of droplet-mediated respiratory diseases during transcontinental airline flights. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(14), 3623–3627. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1073/pnas.1711611115