Chapter 3: Gathering and Appraising the Literature

Question 1

6S hierarchy of preappraised evidence

Answer 1

model developed to assist clinicians in their search for the highest level of evidence. The main use of the 6s hierarchy is for efficiently identifying the highest level of evidence to facilitate a research on a clinical question or problem

Question 2

Boolean operator

Answer 2

words used to define the relationships between words or groups of words in literature searches. Examples of Boolean operators are words such as “AND,” “NOT,” and “NEAR.”

Question 3

citation management software

Answer 3

software that formats citations

Question 4

controlled vocabulary

Answer 4

the terms that indexes have assigned to the articles in a database. When possible, it is helpful to match the words that you use in your search to those specifically used in the database

Question 5

electronic databases

Answer 5

a database that can be accessed by computers or electronic information services

Question 6

literature review

Answer 6

a systematic and critical appraisal of the most important literature on a topic

Question 7

primary source

Answer 7

scholarly literature that is written by the person(s) who developed the theory or conducted the research. Primary sources include eyewitness accounts of historic events, provided by original documents, films, letters, diaries, records, artifacts, periodical, or audio/video recordings

Question 8

print indexes

Answer 8

are useful for finding source that have not been entered into online databases

Question 9

referred, or peer-reviewed, journals

Answer 9

a scholarly journal that has a panel of external and internal reviewers or editors, the panel reviews submitted manuscripts for possible publication. The review panel use the same set of scholarly criteria to judge if the manuscripts are worthy of publication

Question 10

secondary source

Answer 10

scholarly material written by a person(s) other than the individual who developed the theory or conducted the research. Most are usually published. Often a secondary source represents a response to or a summary and critique of a theorist’s or researcher’s work. Examples are documents, films, letters, diaries, records, artifacts, periodicals, or tapes that provide a view of the phenomenon from another’s perspective

Question 11

Web browser

Answer 11

software program used to connect or “read” the World Wide Web (www)