Searching for literature - an introduction

Click on the image below to work through the online tutorial for creating a search strategy. There are activities for you to take part in along the way. 

Have you ever struggled to find quality results but do not know how to improve your searches?  The aim of this guide is to help you to search more effectively.  It covers:

• finding key terms for your topic
• combining terms
• applying your search strategy

This guide is aimed at undergraduates but is suitable for any level of study.             

Cardiff University have produced a video showing how to choose your search keywords, develop a search strategy and carry out your search, using the SCOPUS database:

What are Boolean operators?

If you are unsure what Boolean operators are, this video (from LTHTR Blended Learning) covers the basics. 

Video Guide:

The Using operators in your search tutorial, from The University Manchester, goes through Boolean operators in more detail, with examples and activities to test your knowledge. 

Online Tutorial:

Guidance on how to use the Boolean operators with a health search example is covered in this short video:

Video Guide

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For more information on how to use Boolean operators in a search in CINAHL see the Searching CINAHL page.

Keywords and Synonyms

Before you start to do any research it is important to think about your topic. This could be a question or it could be a research area. Then, you need to think about how this question or topic will fit into a search strategy and this involves thinking about the main keywords you are interested in.

The next step is to think about those main keywords in more detail. Think ... are there other ways to say them (synonyms)? For the best results you need to identify as many synonyms for each concept. There might be lots of other ways to say your keywords or there may only be one way. Don't forget about alternative spellings (UK/US) and abbreviations.

Sometimes it can be difficult to think of alternative keywords for your topic. If you struggle to identify additional keywords for your search terms you could:

• Use a textbook to get an overview of your subject
• Consult a dictionary or encyclopaedia for a definition of your key concept
• Check any references which you already have - what terms have they used to describe your topic?
• Look online. For example, The Developing Keywords guide and The University of Suffolk's thesaurus for nursing and health sciences.
• Describe your topic aloud to someone
• Carry out some scoping searches (for example, basic searches in Discovery) - this can help you find out which keywords bring back the best results

Finding the most effective keywords for your search usually involves some trial and error. However, you can continue to add to your list of keywords as you find out more about your topic.

Advanced Searching Techniques 

There are a number of advanced searching techniques you can use to improve the thoroughness of your searches.

The symbols used for these advanced searching techniques may change depending on which database you are searching in so make sure to check the help button  next to the database name for more information on which symbols to use in that database: https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/az.php? 

The main advanced searching techniques used are: truncation and phrase searching.

Truncation (*)

Truncation is also known as “stemming”.  You can use it to search for a term and variant endings of that term, by substituting the letters at the end of the word for an asterisk (*).  Your search then finds every word that begins with the letters you have entered.  For example, handwash* will retrieve handwash, handwashing. 

Phrase Searching ("")

You can use double speech marks ("") when you want to find an exact phrase, for example,  "healthcare workers”. This will find only documents where those words appear next to each other and in the same order.

Phrase Searching and Truncation Combined

You can also use truncation and phrase searching together.  This can be useful when you want to use phrase searching but still pick up the various endings, including plurals.

As only the exact phrase is searched for, a search for “Health care worker” would not find the plural health care workers. To overcome this issue, you could use truncation within your phrase, “health care worker*”. 

Also a search for “hand wash*” would keep your two keywords together, in the same order, as well as finding hand washing.

Guidance on how to use advanced searching techniques with a health search example is covered in this short video:

Video Guide

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For more information on how to use advanced searching techniques in a search in CINAHL see the Searching CINAHL page.

If you thought this information was useful you may want to look at some of the other Learning Hub guides aimed at helping students with different levels of searching for literature:

If you have any comments about this skills guide, we would love to know them. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.