Health Information Management (HIM) Research Guide

Once you've found reliable sources, you must read them critically for understanding.

Need to understand the components of a scholarly article? Here is an Anatomy of a Scholarly Article from NCSU.

Students in the HIM program use a wide variety of sources to support their learning, many of which are not scientific, or even academic, papers. Articles about technology, user experience, legal issues, or consumer rights and responsibilities are more likely to be found in newspapers, trade journals and on professional websites. General databases are best for finding articles for a non-science audience.

Keep track of your sources, and take notes while you read. "Talk" to the text with your annotations. What are you understanding? What are you having a hard time with? What questions does the information bring up?  If you take notes on a different document, be sure to capture the source citation information and corresponding page numbers for each note.

Use note-taking to help you process the info and keep track of your learning.

APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the health sciences and social sciences fields. 

Why should I cite my sources?

• to demonstrate you have considered others' research
• to direct readers to additional information
• to establish credibility as a careful researcher
• to show professional honesty and courtesy

Visit the Library website for Citation Guides.