Early in a three-credit project practicum the writing typically has to account for how the evidence was found, not only what it says. A search trail is the reproducible record of that work: the databases, the terms, the limits, the dates, the screening decisions and the count of what survived each step. A reader who cannot follow the trail cannot tell whether your evidence set is the defensible one or the convenient one, and that distinction is what the section is scored on. Your section may print this as NR 702B or NR702B; it is the same course. 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-702B Week 2 asks for
Why does a search have to be written down at all? Because a doctoral project asks a reader to accept that the evidence behind a proposed change is representative rather than selected. A wound care clinic proposing a standardized offloading protocol will find that the literature uses at least four different phrases for the same practice, that some of the strongest work sits in podiatry and endocrinology journals rather than nursing ones, and that a search built only from the words clinicians use in the room will miss most of it. Writing the trail forces those problems into the open early, while there is still time to fix the search rather than to defend a thin set at a committee meeting.
The second demand is a screening rule stated before it is applied. Inclusion and exclusion criteria written in advance are what separate an evidence set from a collection. They should be concrete: publication window, setting types, population, whether the outcome resembles yours, language, and whether the study reports the intervention in enough detail to be replicated at your site. That last criterion matters more in translation work than in research reviews, because a study that reports a benefit without describing what was actually delivered cannot guide implementation.
Third, the 192-hour block makes this genuinely achievable rather than aspirational. A three-credit practicum has room for a search done properly: several databases, a hand search of reference lists, a look at guideline repositories and professional bodies, and a documented screening pass. Depth here pays across the entire sequence, because a defensible set assembled once will carry the synthesis, the intervention selection and much of the final proposal without being rebuilt.
The boundary that governs every page in this manual. Practicum hours, hour logs, encounter counts, site documentation, preceptor evaluations and signatures are the student's own record and are never drafted, reconstructed or estimated with help. No tutor performs, observes or documents clinical activity on a student's behalf. Support belongs to the written and preparatory layer only: structuring a search account, writing screening criteria clearly, tightening prose to doctoral register. Where writing draws on real encounters at your site, de-identify every patient detail and describe the setting by type and size rather than by name.
The NR-702B Week 2 method, step by step
Seven moves for building a search a committee can follow and reproduce.
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Break the question into concept blocks
Population, intervention and outcome as three separate lists. Within each list, collect every synonym the literature uses, including the formal indexing terms and the clinical shorthand. Most thin searches are one missing synonym away from being adequate.
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Search where your intervention is published, not only where you are comfortable
Nursing databases carry the delivery literature, medical databases carry the effectiveness trials, and guideline repositories carry the normative statements. Note which you used, because a search of one database is a documented limitation rather than a search.
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Record the exact strings and the dates you ran them
Copy the query as executed, with limits, into a working file the moment you run it. Reconstructing a search weeks later from memory is unreliable, and the string is what makes the account reproducible.
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Write inclusion and exclusion criteria before screening
Five or six lines, each testable by someone else without judgment calls. Criteria written after screening tend to describe the studies you already liked, which a reader can usually detect from how neatly they fit.
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Screen in two passes and count at every step
Titles and abstracts first, then full text. Keep the numbers: identified, after duplicates removed, screened, full text assessed, included and excluded with reasons. Those counts are the spine of the written account.
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Hand search the reference lists of your best sources
The strongest studies cite one another, and reference chasing routinely surfaces work that database indexing missed. Say that you did it and what it added, since it is evidence of thoroughness a reader cannot infer.
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Write the exclusion reasons honestly, including the awkward ones
Excluded because the intervention was delivered by a role your site does not employ is a real reason and a useful one. Excluding a study because its finding was inconvenient is not, and a reader who reconstructs your search will find the omission.
A layout and word budget for a search account
The frame we use for a search and screening deliverable, sized for roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words in a three-credit block. It is our own outline rather than anything the university publishes, and your week's rubric outranks it wherever they disagree. If a flow diagram is required, the counts move into the figure and the prose shortens.
| Section | What belongs in it | Word target |
|---|---|---|
| What the search is for | The question the evidence must answer, restated in one sentence so the criteria that follow have an anchor. | 90 to 120 |
| Concept blocks and terms | The three lists of synonyms and indexing terms, with a note on which yielded the most useful results. | 180 to 220 |
| Databases and sources | Each database named with the dates searched, plus guideline repositories and any professional body consulted. | 150 to 190 |
| Search strings | The queries as executed, with limits and filters, presented so a reader could rerun them. | 120 to 160 |
| Screening criteria | Inclusion and exclusion rules written as testable lines, with the reasoning behind the harder choices. | 200 to 250 |
| Flow and counts | Identified, deduplicated, screened, assessed, included, with exclusion reasons grouped by category. | 170 to 210 |
| What the set looks like | Designs, settings, years and populations of what survived, and what the shape of the set implies. | 190 to 230 |
Evidence craft for search and screening writing
Name a reporting convention and follow it. Standards exist for describing how evidence was identified and screened, and adopting one gives your account a structure a reader already knows how to read. Say which convention you followed rather than inventing headings that approximate it.
Distinguish indexing terms from keywords in the text. Controlled vocabulary and free text behave differently, and a reader assessing your search wants to know you used both. One clause noting which terms were subject headings and which were text words demonstrates search literacy more efficiently than a paragraph of description.
Report counts, not impressions. Write that 412 records were identified, 63 remained after screening titles and abstracts, 24 were assessed in full text and 11 were included. Phrases like several relevant studies were found tell a reader nothing about how selective the process was.
Treat grey literature deliberately. Quality improvement work, professional society statements, state health department reports and organizational protocols often carry the operational detail that peer-reviewed effectiveness studies omit. Say whether you searched them, where, and how you judged their reliability, because including them silently is as weak as omitting them without reason.
State the limits of your own search. Language restriction, single reviewer screening, a narrow publication window, databases your library does not license. Every practicum search has limits, and naming them accurately is what allows a reader to weigh your set instead of assuming the best or the worst.
Five mistakes that cost points in this week's territory
- A search described in the past tense with no strings. Saying a comprehensive search was conducted, without terms, databases or dates, is an assertion rather than an account.
- Criteria invented after the fact. Rules that fit the retained studies suspiciously well suggest the screening ran on preference, and readers test this by asking what was excluded.
- One database, presented as a full search. Different databases index different journals, and the intervention literature is rarely concentrated in the one nurses use most.
- No counts anywhere. Without numbers at each stage the process cannot be reproduced or judged, which defeats the purpose of writing it at all.
- Guidelines quoted without versions. Normative documents are revised, and an undated recommendation is a claim about current practice from an unknown point in time.
Before you submit
- Each concept block lists both indexing terms and free-text synonyms
- Every database is named with the date the search was run
- The search strings appear as executed, including limits
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria are testable by someone other than you
- Counts appear at every stage, with exclusion reasons grouped
- Hand searching and grey literature are described or their absence acknowledged
- The paragraph describing the final set says what its shape implies
- The limits of the search itself are stated plainly
Documenting the NR-702B search?
Send the rubric and your working search notes out of Canvas. A premium original draft comes back in 24 to 48 hours with the trail written so a reader could rerun it, the criteria testable, and the counts consistent at every stage, and revisions run until the grade lands.