NURS-502 Nursing Research

Every research project should start with a quick assessment and a basic plan.

It will start with choosing your topic. There are many ways to choose a topic, but here are three suggestions that work well:

• Solve a problem - think about an issue or problem and research possible solutions. This shouldn't be something massive, like curing cancer, but something you already have some idea about how to address.
• "So how about..." - have you ever been reading a chapter in one of your textbooks or assigned articles and thought "I'd like to know more about this!" Those topics usually make great research projects!
• Close to home - topics which have a personal connection to you can be the most interesting to research.

Once you have a basic idea about what you want to research, think about how much you know about the topic already. If you don't know much about the topic, don't worry! Usually, you can learn a lot about a topic in just a few minutes of basic searching.

Getting ready for your first search

Write down what your initial idea is for your search. You will use this to choose your keywords.

Keywords are the building blocks of a good initial search, so if you have a topic, you can identify what you think the key terms might be.

Do elderly people have trouble making food after being released from the hospital?

We don't need to have every aspect of our question precisely defined, but these keywords will get us started.