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At the end of this section, you will be able to:

‹ Explain why performing a quality literature review is an essential skill for nursing

students, researchers, and nurses

‹ Differentiate between searching for evidence and literature in lay and professional

sources

Finding Sources of Evidence

Patricia Mileham

4.1 Purpose of Finding Evidence

Most often, your first introduction to the literature review is tied to writing an academic paper. The focus
of your papers as an undergraduate student is usually one of gathering information on a topic and perhaps
sharing a resulting opinion about the findings. The literature review provides a consideration of what has
been studied previously. For researchers, the literature review identifies gaps in the current research, high-
lights areas of needed change, increases awareness about practice, and helps sharpen and focus a research
question. Because of the increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice (EBP), nurses must develop
abilities to perform literature reviews to increase knowledge about a specific topic and provide the basis
for an informed, professional opinion to champion EBP in clinical settings.

Knowing how to search for, access, and evaluate information is as important to your successful practice
tomorrow as it is to earning a good grade on an academic paper today. In an insightful editorial directed
to nursing faculty, Christie, Hamill, and Power (2012) specifically detailed the contextual support students
should be provided in learning about research: “The educator has a key role in supporting and guiding

CHAPTER 4