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Library Resources for HS311

Searching for Nominal

Nominal data is basically data that cannot be arranged in an ordering scheme like from high to low.  Ethnicity, gender, and yes/no questions would be examples of nominal data.  Putting them into an order does not change the value of item.  Another way of describing nominal data is they consist mostly of names, labels, and categories.  So, keep that in mind when looking for an article to use.  Below is a sample search to help guide you.
 
For this search, I looked for articles about health literacy.  If your topic is two or more words, put it into quotation marks.  This tells the search engine to look for the words together.  Then click on Search
 
 
On the results page, click on PDF Full Text of the articles that appeal to you to scan through to find a table that has the type of information that you are looking for.  For this search, item number 7 had what you are looking for.
 
 
Scanning through the article, I found Table 1 had demographic characteristics which would fit the nominal data definition.  
 
 
 
So, you could search for any health topic.  For example:
"health education"
"cancer treatment"
"organ transplantation"
or anything you would like.

Searching for Ordinal

Ordinal data can be arranged in some sort of order.  However, the difference between the data values cannot be determined or are meaningless.  Examples of ordinal data are: ranking of favorite sports, order of a person's place in line, or educational level.
 
For this search, I again used health literacy as the example. Again, if your search term is two or more words long, put them into quotes.
 
 
 
On the results page, click on PDF Full Text of the articles that appeal to you to scan through to find a table that has the type of information that you are looking for.  For this search, item number 3 had what you are looking for.
 
 
 
 
 
 
So, you could search for any health topic.  For example:
"health education"
"cancer treatment"
"organ transplantation"
or anything you would like.
 
Add the statistical information that you are looking for after you enter your health topic into the search box.  
"health education" ratio
"cancer treatment" ordinal