NR-585NP Week 2 usually turns the question you wrote into a search a stranger could run again, then asks you to rank what came back. Two skills sit underneath: building a string out of subject headings and Boolean operators, and placing each result on a hierarchy that puts filtered synthesis above single studies and single studies above opinion. Your section may print this as NR 585NP or NR585NP; it is the same course. A search you cannot describe is a search nobody can score.
Chamberlain publishes no syllabi outside Canvas. The placement here is our teaching judgment from the course's catalog arc; your section's rubric decides what your week actually asks.
What NR-585NP Week 2 asks for
The search half is mechanical and it rewards patience. Split the question back into concepts, gather the words the literature uses for each concept, look up the controlled vocabulary that indexes them, then join synonyms with OR inside a concept and concepts with AND across them. Record the number of hits after each move. That running count is the evidence that the search happened rather than a claim that it did.
The ranking half is conceptual. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of trials sit at the top of an intervention hierarchy because somebody has already appraised and pooled the studies underneath. Single randomized trials follow, then quasi-experimental work, then cohort and case-control designs, then descriptive and qualitative studies, then expert opinion. Level answers how much a design controls for error, not how good the individual paper is, and saying so is worth a sentence in your draft.
Deliverables at this point in an 8-week session tend to run 800 to 1,200 words and often carry a small table of terms and hit counts. If your section runs a discussion this week, expect to post the strategy for peers to pull apart, so build the table before you write the post rather than after.
The NR-585NP Week 2 method, step by step
Six moves produce a search you can defend line by line.
-
Break the question back into concepts
Most clinical questions carry two or three searchable concepts, usually the population and the intervention, sometimes the outcome. Comparison and timeframe rarely belong in the string. Fewer concepts means more results, which is the correct problem to have at the start.
-
Collect the words the literature actually uses
Every concept has several names. Older adult, elderly, geriatric and aged are different doorways into the same idea, and a database indexes them differently. Skim three relevant abstracts and harvest their vocabulary before you write anything.
-
Look up the controlled vocabulary
PubMed indexes with medical subject headings and CINAHL with its own subject headings. Searching a heading catches articles whose authors chose different words from yours. Run headings and free text together so nothing indexed slowly gets missed.
-
Assemble the string one concept at a time
Join synonyms with OR, then combine the concept sets with AND, noting the count at each stage. A count that collapses from thousands to nine at one step tells you exactly which line to loosen.
-
Set limits you can justify
Years, peer reviewed, language, age group and publication type each remove evidence from view. Apply them deliberately and say why in one clause. An unexplained limit reads to a grader like a search that was trimmed until it was convenient.
-
Screen in three passes and record the losses
Titles first, then abstracts, then full text, against inclusion and exclusion criteria you wrote before screening started. Report how many were removed at each pass. The arithmetic is the transparency the scoring rows are looking for.
What a search summary contains, and how long each part runs
Sizing for a 1,000 word summary from our own drafting practice. Your week's rubric sets the real limit; these proportions keep the mechanical parts from eating the reasoning.
| Part | What belongs in it | Word target |
|---|---|---|
| Question restated | The question in one sentence with its elements visible, so the search has something to answer. | 80 |
| Databases and rationale | Which databases and why each suits this question, including any specialist source. | 120 |
| Terms and headings | Prose around the table: synonym sets, headings used, truncation and phrase choices. | 150 |
| Limits and justification | Every limit applied and one clause per limit explaining what it protects against. | 150 |
| Screening and yield | Counts at each pass, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the number retained. | 200 |
| Levels of the retained evidence | Each retained source placed on the hierarchy with the design that puts it there. | 200 |
| What the search failed to find | Gaps, thin areas and any question the literature has not answered yet. | 100 |
Search craft that survives a grader
Date your search. Databases change weekly. One sentence giving the date you ran the final string makes every count in your table verifiable, and it is the first thing an experienced reader looks for.
Headings and keywords do different work. A subject heading finds articles indexed under a concept. A keyword finds articles using your exact word. Running only one of them leaves a predictable hole in the yield.
Truncate carefully. Nurs catches nurse, nurses and nursing, and it also catches nursery. Say what you truncated so a reader can judge the noise it let in.
Guidelines and reports are evidence with a different address. Professional body guidelines and federal reports are not indexed like journal articles and often need a direct site search. Their absence from a nursing search is a hole, not a virtue.
Five years is a default, not a law. Follow the window your week's rubric names, and when you keep an older paper, say in the sentence whether it is a seminal source or the only measurement that exists.
Report the counts you actually got. Rounded or tidied numbers invite the one question you cannot answer. An awkward yield of seven articles, honestly reported, scores better than a suspiciously round thirty.
Five ways a search section loses marks
- A general web search dressed up as a database search. If the strategy cannot be re-run in a named database with named terms, it is browsing, and the reproducibility rows will say so.
- One database, no rationale. Nursing questions usually need CINAHL plus at least one biomedical index. Using a single source is defensible only when you write the defense.
- Keywords with no controlled vocabulary anywhere. This is the most common cause of a thin yield, and it is invisible to the student because the search still returns something.
- Limits that quietly removed the best evidence. A five year filter can delete the landmark trial your whole argument rests on. Check what a limit costs before you keep it.
- Level assigned by journal reputation. The hierarchy ranks designs, not titles. A cohort study in a famous journal is still a cohort study, and saying otherwise is scored as a reasoning error.
Before you submit the search
- The final string is printed in full and could be pasted into the database as it stands
- Subject headings and free text terms both appear in the strategy
- Every limit has a clause explaining why it is there
- Hit counts are recorded at each stage and the screening arithmetic adds up
- Each retained source carries a level with the design that justifies it
- The date of the search appears somewhere a reader will find it
Search returning nothing usable?
Send the question and the rubric from Canvas. A premium original draft comes back inside 24 to 48 hours with the string built, the counts recorded, the retained sources levelled, and revisions free until every reproducibility row is satisfied.