info Welcome to the new library homepage for students who enrolled through Northcentral University. To access the old NCU library homepage, click here. If you enrolled through National University, click here. Please be aware that the NU and NCU students have access to all of the same resources, and we will be merging library homepages by next year.
notifications Welcome to the new library homepage! If you are looking for the old homepage, click here.
You have your question, and you've got a great search strategy, but how do you know which articles are the "best"?
That epends on the type of information you are looking for:
Primary Sources: first hand evidence concerning a topic under investigation
Secondary Sources: summaries and analyses of the evidence derived from and based on primary sources
Once you figure out what to look for and where, you'll still have to worry about the quality of the material you find. A poorly done systematic review is not better than a well done randomized controlled trial. On this page, you will find resources to help you with appraising the material you find.
Critical appraisal is a systematic process of analyzing research to assess methods, validity and usefulness.
The key questions in critical appraisal are:
Why was the study done?
What type of study was done?
What are the study characteristics?
What was done to address bias?
What are the results and are the results valid?
What conclusions can you make?
Adapted from: Voutier, C. (2013). Critical appraisal. Evidence Direct: A Service of the RMH Health Sciences Library. Retrieved 17 December 2015 from: http://library.mh.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=272&Itemid=537
© Copyright 2024 National University. All Rights Reserved.