health care foundations

competency

the capability to apply or use a set of related knowledge, skills, and abilities required to successfully perform tasks in a defined work setting

competency model

a collection of competencies that define successful performance in a particular work setting

license

a credential awarded by a governmental licensing agency that gives legal authority to work in an occupation and required meeting predetermined criteria

certification

a credential awarded by a professional organization or other nongovernmental body that is not legally required in order to work in an occupation but demonstrates

boolean operators

words that make it easy for you to customize the results of your search (e.g., AND, OR, and NOT)

evidence

facts, examples, or sources used to support a claim

Google Scholar

a tool for finding books and journal articles that you might normally get from a library

grey literature

authoritative information that is not usually published commercially; the credibility and reliability of the material may not undergo peer-review prior to publishing

keywords

words that hold the key idea of what you are trying to find; usually nouns

library database

a specialized database that allows targeted searching on one or more specific subject areas, for a specific subject areas, for a specific format, or for information published with a specific date rangearea,

peer-reviewed article

an article that has undergone a formal submission process where experts ensure characteristics of the research before it is accepted for publication

phrase searching

searching with an exact phrase to improve the relevance of your search results

popular resources

meant for a large general audience; may not be credible or reliable information

professional resources

meant for people in a particular profession

scholarly resources

written by qualified experts for scholars; may be categorized as primary, secondary, or tertiary

subject headings

a word or phrase that is assigned to an article or other resource and describes the tropic of the resource

truncation

shortening a word by removing one or more letters to search by multiple variations of a word at once

wildcards

a special character that replaces one or more letters in a word to search for multiple variations of the word

academic integrity

accurately representing your efforts, as well as how others influenced your work

collusion

working together with others despite being instructed to work individually

contract cheating

when Person A completes an assignment for Person B, and Person B submits the work as their own

jargon

shorthand communication used by experts

paraphrasing

rewriting another person’s idea in your own words without changing the original meaning

plagiarism

a form of theft; the unauthorized or uncredited use of another’s work or ideas

point of view

the vantage point of written work; academic writing is usually in the third-person point of view

quoting

using part of a source word for word as it is

self-plagiarism

recycling one’s prior work without acknowledging that the work has been reused; may constitute a violation of academic integrity standards (see your institution's academic integrity code)

slang

informal communication that often changes with passing fads

summarizing

restarting another person’s idea in your own words; unlike a paraphrase, a summary only highlights key points

tone

the general character or attitude of a piece of work, as determined by word choice and structure