Nursing 050
Information Literacy
Part I. Guide to the Professional Journal Assignment
Your professional nursing journal assignment requires that you select a nursing journal
which is sponsored by a professional nursing association and available, in print, at the
College Library. The Library subscribes to a variety of Nursing journals, some of which
qualify for your assignment. The following serves as a guide to help you complete your
professional journal assignment. Please also check back to the specifics of the
assignment given to you by your Nursing 106 professor.
FIRST Select a current (published in the last year) print Nursing journal
available in the Library that is sponsored by a professional Nursing association.
There is a short Nursing Tutorial on the library website that describes how to identify a
journal that meets the requirements of your assignment. To access the tutorial, login to
the MyMC3 student portal. Click the red Library button on the right. Click Help Zone.
Scroll down to the box for Nursing. Click the link for the Nursing 106 class tutorial. The
tutorial will show you where to look, both inside, as well as on the cover of the journal, for
evidence that the journal is a professionally sponsored nursing journal.
ONCE YOU HAVE CHOSEN YOUR JOURNAL, examine your Professional Journal
Review assignment so that you understand all of the components of this assignment.
Consider the points below to help you to complete the Professional Journal Review
assignment. (NOTE: This is just a guide to help you. .)

What is the full name of the publication? What is the date of issue? Must be
published within the last year.

Name the Professional Nursing Organization that published this journal (this
often appears on the cover of the journal and always in the publication information.)

Who is the intended audience for this journal? Think about whether the articles in
the journal contain general information or are directed to a specialty area of
Nursing.


Examine the Table of Contents:
o
What are the various features?
o
What columns does the journal contain?
o
What sections does the journal feature?
Select an article that you find interesting from the journal. This article
must be a feature article or a research study that contains references.

Read this article so that you understand it and are able to summarize it in your
own words.

Think about the questions that the authors asked and what they
discovered as a result of doing the research.
o
What type of research does the article reflect?
o
What, if any, conclusions did the authors come to?
o
How was the study conducted? This is often described in a section called
‘Methodology’.

What kind of research study is presented in the article?
o
Is it a quantitative study? (This type of study follows a specific plan to
collect information and then analyze it using statistical formulas.)
o
Or, is it a qualitative study? (This type of study describes subjective and
complex experiences. The information is analyzed according to themes and
responses.)

Think about the roles of the nurse: Provider of care; Manager of care;
Member within the Discipline. Think about which of these three roles of the
nurse your article reflects the most.
Adapted by MBP from Elizabeth Keene, Nursing Professor doc. Updated 8/14/13.