Library FAQs

Nursing students are often required to use a certain number of current nursing journal articles for their papers. Generally, this means articles published in nursing journals within the last five years.  Figuring out the date of the article is usually not difficult.  But how can you tell if a journal is a nursing journal or not?

It's fairly straightforward if "nurse" or "nursing" appears in the journal title (e.g., AJN American Journal of Nursing).  But if not, you may need to do some critical thinking or investigate further. 

If you are using one of the library's databases (such as CINAHL), you can click on the title of the article to see its full record.

• under the Source field, click on the Journal Title.
  • the next screen will include a description that may help you determine if this is a nursing journal.
    • under the Journal Subset field, you may see "nursing," or you may see some other categories (e.g., public health, biomedical) that may indicate the journal is multidisciplinary and not strictly a nursing journal.

You can also do a web search for the title of the journal to find the journal's website. 

• look for the "about" information for the journal, which often will indicate either the intended audience or the responsible organization.
  • if the intended audience includes groups other than nurses or a specialty of nursing like Midwifery, the journal is most likely considered multidisciplinary and not strictly a nursing journal.
  • if the responsible organization is a nursing association/society, that's a good indication that it would be considered a nursing journal. (An example is MedSurg Matters, the official newsletter of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses and contains peer-reviewed articles as well as news items). 

Keep in mind that you may find journal articles that are not from nursing journals but that you want to include in your paper.  As long as you've met the requirements for the total number of current nursing journal articles, using other articles or information from non-journal sources is usually just fine, as long as they are considered professional, current, authoritative sources. 

For more information on how to limit your CINAHL searches to nursing journals, please see How to Limit to Current Nursing Journal Articles. 

You're encouraged to contact Karla, the nursing librarian, or make an appointment to talk over ideas.  She can offer suggestions and help you find appropriate resources, as well as help you determine if a specific journal is a nursing journal or not.