Systematic literature searching for health and life sciences students

Systematic literature searching

This guide aims to take you through the full structured, systematic, literature searching process, usually required for a final year project within health and life sciences.

Evidence of a systematic, structured, literature search could be required for an undergraduate (Level 5 or 6) or taught postgraduate (Level 7), dissertation proposal, dissertation, service improvement project, or systematic review. 

If you are an academic, researcher or a postgraduate doctoral student (Level 8) and require support with searching, please see the Research support pages. 

Key stages in systematic literature searching

Depending on what type of project you are undertaking, the stages involved in the full research process may be different. However, the key stages for conducting a comprehensive, systematic and structured literature search tend to include:

• Planning a search:
  • defining your search and identifying the key concepts (and synonyms); putting your key concepts into an appropriate framework (if applicable); using Boolean operators and advanced searching techniques.
• Carrying out a search:
  • conducting a structured literature search, which can be searched systematically across the databases, and is transparent so it can be replicated by others.
• Refining a search:
  • reading the titles/abstracts/full-text of items in the search results to decide on their relevance, if any changes are needed to the search strategy and using appropriate limits within the databases to refine results as needed.
• Saving (and re-running) a search:
  • some databases allow you to save and re-run your search which can save you time.
• Evidencing a search strategy:
  • sometimes you may need to include a search strategy in your written work, to show evidence of the search you have conducted.
• Managing the search results:
  • for some research projects you need to keep an accurate record of duplicate results and which results have been included / excluded.

This guide will go through each stage, as well as linking out to additional resources which may be helpful in the steps beyond the literature search. 

Subject databases

Discovery is a useful resource to use to get started with searching for literature. However, as you progress throughout your course, and when you are expected to evidence your search, you will need to start searching the subject databases. 

The databases which are recommended for your subject area, can be found on the Subject Guides. 

The main ones used in health and life sciences, which are linked to below, are CINAHL, Medline, Embase, Health Research Premium Collection, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane Library Online.

Grey Literature

Grey literature is material which is not usually published through normal channels.  Examples of grey literature include: government reports, theses, conference papers and abstracts, discussion papers, newsletters, PowerPoint presentations, best practice documents, guidelines and protocols. 

The helpsheet below details the best sources to use to find grey literature in health.

The UK Health Security Agency have also compiled an index of grey literature and the link to this is below.

Further reading

Research referred to in this guide, as well as additional useful resources, can be found on the reading list for Searching for Information in Health and Life Sciences. Click on the image below to access the reading list.

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