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Structured literature searchingA structured literature search involves using relevant keywords (and their synonyms), Boolean operators and advanced searching techniques.
The resources below can be used to help with your searching.
The search will need to be thorough and transparent. The majority of examples shown are using a database called CINAHL, but the techniques can be applied to other resources. Your subject guide will point you towards the most appropriate databases for your subject area.
When you search for information, it’s very easy to get too many results or results that aren't very relevant. When you type in more than one search term, you can link them together with AND or OR. These are known as Boolean operators. If you are unsure of how Boolean operators work, see the section 'What are Boolean operators?' on the Planning your search page.
The written guidance and video tutorial below show how to use Boolean operators in CINAHL.
There are a number of techniques you can use to improve the thoroughness of your searches. Two of the main advanced searching techniques used in CINAHL are truncation and phase searching. The written guidance and video tutorial below show how to use advanced searching techniques in CINAHL.
Once you have completed your search in CINAHL you may need to refine your search further in order to get the best results. To do this you can:
The written guidance and video tutorial below show how to do this in CINAHL.
Once you have found some useful resources from your search, the next step is opening them to read the full text. The written guidance below explains how to do this.
If you are searching across more than one of the EBSCO databases (e.g. CINAHL and Medline) at the same time. There might be some duplicate records in the results. This short video explains how to work out how many duplicates there are in your results, as well as how to work out how many results came back from each database searched.
Subject terms, also known as subject headings, are a list of words or phrases that use controlled vocabulary to describe specific concepts. The written guidance below explains how to use these subject headings in CINAHL, Medline and Embase.
Before finalising your structured search, make sure to review your search strategy following the checklist and top tips available in the guide below. You can also download the checklist.
Part 1 of this video series looks at how to search for quality information using Discovery.
It covers the basics of searching and using Discovery to create a basic and advanced search. The advice given and the searching techniques can be applied to any health topic/discipline. The slides which are used during this video presentation are below.
Part 2 of this video series looks at searching for quality information in the subject databases. It covers advanced and structured searching in the online health databases. The advice given and the searching techniques can be applied to any health topic/discipline.
If you haven’t already done so, you might also find it useful to watch part 1 which looks at the basics of searching and using Discovery.
The slides which are used during this video presentation are below.
Please note: The library homepage has been updated since this video was recorded and the skills guides mentioned in the video can now be found here: https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/learninghub?b=s&group_id=6925
This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Deed.
