Simplifying Synthesis - Essay Example

"Simplifying Synthesis" is a decent example of a paper on care.
The topic of interest that I have chosen for further study is “simplifying synthesis” because it is about nursing and formulation of literature review for nursing research, which is very critical. With thorough research through the Walden University online library, I have identified a peer-reviewed research article that focused on this topic. My analysis is as shown below.

Step 1: Research Analysis

The topic of Interest:

Simplifying Synthesis

Research Article:

Professional Practice Use:

In most professions, there is a need to write articles that need detailed and well research literature review. This article breaks down how to synthesize or make a literature review that is relevant and well thought of. The article also helps writers to understand and get enough knowledge about their topic of interest.

The concepts used in this article to simplify the making of a good literature review include the common ones people are already aware of. They include skills that pertain to decision making, doing analysis, evaluating findings, and adding a creative touch to the findings (Shellenbarger, 2016). The article’s first step of identifying a topic is a basic concept used by researchers of all divides because without the topic, research would have no meaning.

Research Analysis Matrix

Strengths of the Research

Limitations/Weaknesses of the Research

Relevancy to Topic of Interest

Notes

The research was done in a systematic way and demonstrated step by step

The thesis statement was too broad and one would strain to try to figure out what the article is all about

Thesis statements are important in giving a research article a focus

The thesis statement ought to have been short and to the point

Topic sentences used and came out clear

The topic sentences do not really focus on what each paragraph is all about; at least in some.

Topic sentences contain the main idea of a paragraph therefore the whole paragraph should reflect on it and not deviate

The paragraph formulated each time should reflect on the topic sentence.

The research article had a conclusion

The conclusion seems inadequate.

it would be good if it included a bit of summary of what the paper was about

The conclusion gives a summary, recommendations, and a decision

The paper is detailed

It concentrates much on details that it gives less time to talk about the steps of synthesizing a literature review

Details are important but it should not be a reason to deviate from the main topic.

A good paper should not be detail-oriented

Parts like introduction, methodology, aims, or findings. The reader strains a lot finding these sections.

Step 2: Summary of Analysis

When finding and examining peer-reviewed articles my approach was as follows; I know articles could either be journals and scholarly works. Journals take the form of scholarly journals, trade publications, and magazines. Scholarly journals mostly are about reports on research studies and hence rich in knowledge. Trade publications are mostly about business, advertisements, and news. Popular magazines use informal journalistic language that serves the purpose of entertainment to readers. Peer-reviewed research is likely to be found in scholarly journals that have a platform for other researchers to review one’s work and express what they think about the article(Walden online library(a), 2020). The other outstanding feature about peer-reviewed articles is that they contain abstracts. Analyzing peer-reviewed research involves diving deeper into the research work and breaking it down.  Peer-reviewed research should be analyzed for the presence of the abstract, a detailed literature review with appropriate citations, methodology, findings, conclusions recommendations, and limitations of the study which should be clearly stated (Walden online library(a), 2020).

The two approaches that I found effective in identifying peer-reviewed research that I would easily use were the use of keywords to search on the internet or online libraries. I then used the keyword to search several databases like NCBI, PubMed, and Research gate and finally decided to take the one on Nursing Author and Editor. When an article is consistent in most databases then it has obviously been peer-reviewed (Walden Online library (b), 2020). The other strategy that worked for me was just searching the word “peer-reviewed research articles” with the keywords then I chose the article that had more peer review.

Conclusion

Peer-reviewed research articles are articles that are reviewed by experts before they are officially published in the journal. Peer-reviewing of articles helps in enhancing the quality of the article and placing it in academic standards that are easy to read by scholars. I found the Walden university only library to be very useful in identifying and analyzing a peer-reviewed article which was titled “simplifying synthesis”. The topic was important in providing information on how to come up with a relevant literature review which has been found to be quite a huddle for most researchers especially those who are nurses. Most resources exist for finding peer-reviewed research articles. An example is the Academic Search ultimate which has a lot of such articles ranging from sciences to geographical disciplines (Illinois library, 2020). Course-specific resources include CINAHL and Medline combined search, PubMed, and Embase. These are databases that provide information specifically on nursing.