NUR 51000: Research & Evidence Based Nursing: Find Full Text & Requesting Articles

This page describes how to open a full text article through library resources. 

There are several ways to obtain the full text of an article.

• Click on the title of an article. Some titles will link you directly to the full text.
• Look for a PDF link. This link may include the PDF acronym and/or an Adobe PDF icon.   .

• Click on the Check for Full Text Availabilty link. 

The Check for Full Text Availabilty link searches other PNW databases for the full text of an article when it is unavailable in the database being searched.  Different databases are licensed to provide access to different journals, and some publishers place restrictions or embargoes on full-text availability. Clicking on the Check for Full Text Availability link allows the system to search elsewhere within the Purdue Northwest collection for your selected article.

If full text is found in another database, you will see a message that will link you to the database where the full text is available.

If you see the following window, then the full text is not available in the library or in any PNW database. Instead, you can sign in and request the article via InterLibrary Loan.

Tip: Before making an InterLibrary Loan request, try a search by article title or author name in Google Scholar to see if a free copy is available on the internet.  

Some databases offer a full text limiter. This limiter appears as  in MEDLINE and  in CINAHL.

We recommend that you do not select this limiter. Selecting this option will restrict your results to full text articles in that individual database. You will not get the Check for Full Text Availability link which may be able to connect you to the full text of a relevant article through a different database.

Keep this limiter unchecked to allow a search across all library databases for the full text.

If would like to obtain the full text of an article where no full text option is offered, it might be helpful to perform a direct search in the following:

InterLibrary Loan enables PNW students, faculty, and staff with the ability to obtain items, free of charge, from other libraries. This service is only available for items which cannot be obtained from any library resource or freely online (i.e., Google Scholar).

Log-in to your InterLibrary Loan account to place a request. First time users must create an account by clicking on the red First Time Users! link on the InterLibrary Loan page.  When applicable, please indicate that you are an Distance Learner by selecting Distance Ed Undergrad or Distance Ed Grad in the drop-down menu for the Status field. 

The response time varies by institution; items usually arrive within 10 days. You will receive email notification when your item arrives.

You can go directly to the library's InterLibrary Loan page here. 

As a student at Purdue University Northwest, you have access to millions of items through the library’s physical collections, databases, and InterLibrary Loan.  While it rarely occurs, there are times when the full text of an article must be purchased individually. This is more likely to happen when you do not use Primo or a PNW database to find an article. 

Please take the following steps if you are prompted to purchase an article:

• Redo your article search in Primo, Citation Linker, Google Scholar, and InterLibrary Loan.
• Send the citation (title, authors, publication, etc...) information to your librarian. Please include where you initially found the article referenced.
• Request a copy of the article directly from the authors. It is not guaranteed, but some authors may be willing to send you a free copy.

The library is not able to purchase articles.