Navigating Credible Information Sources: A Guide for Nursing Professionals - Essay Sample

Introduction

Given the technological advancements in education and research fields in the world today, there has been an influx of information concerning different phenomena on the internet. The situation creates confusion in academic, professional, and scholarly work by misleading scholars in their research. Academic sources that are not peer-reviewed may contain errors, bias, or misleading information, which hinder their credibility. Scholars and professionals, especially in nursing, are mandated to utilize peer-reviewed sources to gather credible and reliable information. Peer review involves subjecting a researcher's work to the scrutiny of peers who are experts in the same field to ensure that only quality and credible information reach the scientific community (Boughton, Kowalczuk, Meerpohl, Wager, & Moylan, 2018). In essence, peer review serves as a filter to ensure that only high-quality articles are published in journals and asses the originality of a study. Nevertheless, critics have termed the peer review process as slow and limiting innovation. Despite the negative critics, peer review is an indispensable practice essential in enhancing credibility, quality, and originality of published scientific work.

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Importance of Peer-Reviewed Sources

Quality

Peer review influences researchers to provide high-quality work in their e=respective fields. Notably, most reputable journals accept only relevant articles that satisfy their criteria. While others may have more relaxed standards, some journals allow only those articles that exceed their expectations and reject those that do not (Boughton et al., 2018). Researching a specific field requires more than just a collection of accurate information to qualify as quality work. For instance, a researcher ought to have followed the standard methodology of conducting a study. They also need to consider ethics in their interactions during the research (Kelly, Sadeghieh, & Adeli, 2014). Peer reviewers are mandated to reject any analysis that does not follow the accepted format and study methodology.

On the other hand, most scientific research, especially in nursing, involves the testing of a hypothesis to reach a specific conclusion. However, some researchers may develop a weak thesis or assume certain variables to reach their conclusion, which reduces the quality of their work (Boughton et al., 2018). In such a scenario, peer reviewers will identify shortcomings and propose revisions or reject the work entirely. A high-quality research article is supposed to show how the conclusion was reached without any contradiction or assumptions made on vital variables in the study.

While the authenticity of the information in a study research article guarantees the quality, other elements such as language, organization, and presentation of the research findings also play an essential role. In this case, peer reviewers check if there are errors in grammar, organization of ideas, punctuations, and presentation (Boughton et al., 2018). They advise on necessary changes through revisions to increase the readability of the articles. Furthermore, peer review enhances the quality of published scientific work through correction and elimination of any bias. Before an article is published, it is reviewed several times by several referrals to ensure that it is of exceptional quality. The manuscript must be logical, well organized, state all facts and assumptions, and maintain scholarly ethics (Boughton et al., 2018). Therefore, the process motivates researchers to follow all the rules of conducting and documenting a study or experimentation to ensure that their articles are accepted by their desired journals.

Credibility

Peer review is also essential in enhancing the authenticity and credibility of research studies. In this case, research integrity encompasses elements such as transparency, ethics, and reproducibility. Notably, most journals mandate the authors to acknowledge any contribution from other scholars in their work to reduce authorship disputes that damage the integrity of a research (Kelly et al., 2014). Today, research has become multidisciplinary, which contributes to the changing and growing authorship roles. For example, extensive researches in nursing can involve hundreds of contributors depending on the complexity of a study (Kelly et al., 2014). In such a situation, if an author does not acknowledge the contribution of others in his or her manuscript, the contributors may offer negative critics or launch legal litigations. According to Boughton et al. (2018), authorship of a manuscript is a responsibility as much as it is a mark of credit; therefore, authors are mandated to acknowledge any significant contribution in their researches. In this case, peer reviewers check if any author included in has accepted its the publication of its content (Manchikanti, Kaye, Boswell, & Hirsch, 2015). The situation prevents instances where contributors initiate litigations to have an article removed from a journal.

Secondly, scientific research studies must be reproducible to enhance credulity and reuse of information. According to Kelly et al. (2014), ensuring that research findings are reproducible is a significant move in improving its integrity and revealing to funders, peers, and the public that scientific work can be trusted. In this case, peer reviewers check if all the experiments and procedures used to produce specific results can be used to develop new work concerning the research (Boughton et al., 2018). The situation prevents any instances of result fabrications, which can lead to reasoning errors in academic work. Furthermore, the process of carrying out peer review enhances research credibility and integrity by eliminating biases among reviewers. For example, open peer reviews limits reviewers from giving harsh reviews, which are unnecessary or biased (Boughton et al., 2018). In open peer reviews, both the author and reviewer know each other.

Novelty and Originality

Typically, journals do not publish reproduced or plagiarized works or any research with manipulated images. Plagiarism is any use of other authors works without adequately acknowledging them. Additionally, copying another author's work and claiming to be one's research is also a violation of research integrity (Boughton et al., 2018). Most journals mandate authors to submit manuscripts with zero plagiarism and acknowledge all primary sources used in their study. Therefore, after a paper is submitted for peer-reviewing, editors and reviewers check for its similarity index and propose revisions or reject the article ((Manchikanti et al. 2015). Additionally, they may return the manuscript for corrections if it does not follow any given criteria of referencing.

Moreover, peer review ensures the novelty of research studies before they are published in a journal. Originality does not only consider the provision of high-quality non-plagiarized work but also ensure that a study develops findings presented are original (Kelly et al., 2014). Originality ensures that scientists keep up with emerging trends in their respective fields by exploring new areas. In this case, a researcher is obligated to conduct a thorough literature review to find out what is known and identify any gaps in their area of interest (Boughton et al., 2018). The situation prevents them from conducting examinations and studies on already discovered phenomena, which increases redundancy in science. Because of the emphasis created by journals towards novelty, researchers identify gaps in their fields and focus on filling them. On the other hand, innovation can also include refuting already existing information by providing alternative scientific proof (Manchikanti et al., 2015). In this case, reviewers asses the originality and validity of the information before approving any submitted manuscript.

How to Determine if a Source is Peer-Reviewed

According to Boughton et al. (2018), peer-reviewed sourced have several characteristics and format that distinguish them from other academic articles. Notably, Ulrichsweb is an online database that allows people to check if a source is peer-reviewed (Boughton et al., 2018). In this case, an individual opens the website from their computers and searches the article of concern. After the results show, a person can check if the journal is peer-reviewed by checking the journals basic description.

Alternatively, one can apply specific criteria based on observation to identify if the information is peer-reviewed by assessing several characteristics. Firstly, one should check if the author of the data is a scholar. In this case, one can check if the author has an advanced degree or academic credentials or whether they are affiliated with any organization such as a university. Secondly, one can check who the intended audience and the contents of the article (Boughton et al., 2018). Typically, authors of peer-reviewed articles write their work for researchers, experts, scholars, and students. Therefore, they utilize specialized terminologies concerning their field of study.

Thirdly, peer-reviewed articles will always have a reference section, where the authors acknowledge all the sources they used in their work. Additionally, the information must contain in-text citations that much references in the work cited page. Fourthly, peer-reviewed articles have an abstract at the beginning of the paper (Kelly et al., 2014). An abstract summarizes what the author will tackle in the research paper. Fifthly, a person can check if an article has a structure and format of a research study (Boughton et al., 2018). Typically, a research article has an abstract and a hypothesis that they aim to test.

How to Determine Quality Information

The information quality (IQ) is an exemplary method to evaluate the quality of the information in a journal article or a website. The content-related criterion is a subset of the IQ-criterion that is concerned with the actual data in an article. In this case, the approach evaluates the accuracy of the information presented, which is the fraction of correct values to the overall number of values in an article. According to Gannon (2001), accuracy is an intrinsic property of quality data; therefore, one can check the percentage of errors in a source. If the rate is of significant consideration, then the source can be termed as of poor quality (Gannon, 2001). Notably, incorrect data may be identified through weak conclusions and faulty assumptions, which are often misleading.

Secondly, a person can utilize subject criteria to identify the quality of the information in a source. In this case, one evaluates specific peer-reviewed such as relevance, reputation, concise presentation of information, interpretability, understandability, and believability of information (Manchikanti et al., 2015). For example, low-quality information is not relevant to the field of expertise, lacks tested hypotheses, and is often difficult to comprehend (Gannon, 2001). Furthermore, the two criterions are essential in identifying whether the information is of exemplary quality since they allow an individual to determine the relevance and credibility of a source. For example, the content-related criterion reveals the integrity of a source concerning the errors present. Errors can be in the form of fallacies or statistical miscalculations (Gannon, 2001).

Overall, peer review is an exemplary technique to ensure that only high quality, credible, and relevant information reaches the scientific community. Over the past decades, there has been an influx of information, which is not reliable or trustworthy that pose a threat to unsuspecting scholars and professionals. Peer review has multiple benefits such as enhancing originality, quality, and credibility of information before it is...