Assignment

Where can you find evidence to inform your thoughts and scholarly writing? Throughout your degree program, you will use the research literature to explore ideas, guide your thinking, and gain new insights. As you search the research literature, it is important to use resources that are peer-reviewed and from scholarly journals. You may already have some favorite online resources and databases that you use or have found useful in the past. For this Discussion, you explore databases available through the Walden Library.

To prepare:

• Review the information presented in the Learning Resources for using the Walden Library, searching the databases, and evaluating online resources.

• Begin searching for a peer-reviewed article that pertains to your practice area and is of particular interest to you.

• Identify the database that you used to search for a peer-reviewed article in your area of practice and interest.

• Reflect on your experience with searching the database. Did you note any difficulties when searching for an article? What steps/strategies did you find helpful for locating a peer-reviewed article? Would this database be useful to your colleagues? Would you recommend this database?

• Once you have select your peer-reviewed article, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in terms of scholarly writing, bias, opinion, quality of evidence, and appropriateness to its target audience.

Post a brief summary of your peer-reviewed article, the database you located your article in, your database searching experience, key words utilized in the search, and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Support your Discussion assignment with specific resources used in its preparation using APA formatting. You are asked to provide a reference for all resources, including those in the Learning Resources for this course.