Journal Clubs: Searching the Literature for Research Articles

Guidance for participating in this activity, from how to find articles to discuss to how to lead a journal club.

Finding Research Articles in Some Common Wilkes Databases

Often your instructor may suggest a brief list of journals in which to browse for possible articles. These may be specialty titles (e.g., Pediatrics) or broader, non-specialty titles (e.g., NEJM, Lancet, JAMA).

In addition to browsing, there are some basic strategies if you are interested in a definite topic and/or want to make your quest more systematic and inclusive by using a literature search. Finding evidence-based research is not difficult. You just need to know where to start, and with the databases listed below (available at Wilkes) you should be able to find research articles about your topic.

Here are some databases and search tips to help increase your likelihood of retrieving research articles. But it is important to read the abstract and/or article for clues that tell you if the article is an original research article or just a report about research findings. A research article should contain the following types of sections: Purpose or Objective; Research Design or Methodology; Findings or Results; Conclusions or Implications.

TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) Database – A meta-search engine that searches across 61 evidence-based medical sites of high-quality information, including online journals such as JAMA, NEJM, and BMJ.

The TRIP (Turning Research into Practice) Database filters results into a number of categories which are color coded. The default results tab shows Evidence (vs. images, videos, etc.) in the literature. The first (green) level of evidence shows Secondary Evidence which includes Systematic Reviews. The second (red) level of evidence covers primary literature (including Controlled Trials) and these are further categorized by the top publications/journals in the group, followed by other publishers grouped together.

TRIP presents results in order of Quality of Evidence, but you may sort the results by date.