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Literature searching: 1: Compose search

This page contains basic information to consider when composing and structuring your search.

Process

  1. Define your topic/problem
  2. Create your search terms
  3. Building your search
  4. Limiting your search results
  5. Citation mapping tools

Note: All EXAMPLES below listed in green

1. Define your topic/problem

  1. Precisely define your topic:
    • Don't include too many concepts
      • PREOPERATIVE ASSESSMENT FOR CHILDREN UNDERGOING BARIATRIC PROCEDURES
  2. ​​Define your potentialsearch terms:
    • Think about the individual parts that comprise the topic
      • PREOPERATIVE + ASSESSMENT + CHILD+BARIATRICS
    • Define the order of importance for the elements of the search
      • BARIATRICS
      • ASSESSMENT
      • PREOPERATIVE
      • CHILD
  3. Define your scope:
    • Consider broadening or narrowing your search terms
      • PREOPERATIVE
        • Broader term =PERIOPERATIVE PERIOD
      • BARIATRICS
        • Broader term =OBESITY
        • Narrower term =BARIATRIC SURGERY
    • Consider the use of related or alternate terms
      • ANAESTHESIA = ANESTHETICS
      • CHILD = PAEDIATRICS
    • Once the terms are decided, be sure to include sub-topics when searching (see below) [in Medline, this is called exploding the term]

2. Creating your search terms

  1. Subjects versus keywords:
    • Where possible, try mapping your search term to a subject heading
      • This will help yield the maximum number of results
    • Most health-related databases utilise Medical Subject Headings (or MeSH)
      • BARIATRIC PATIENT = BARIATRICS
      • PREOPERATIVE = PREOPERATIVE PERIOD
      • ASSESSMENT = PATIENT OUTCOME ASSESSMENT or TREATMENT OUTCOME
    • Check relevant articles for the subjects and keywords used to ascertain potential additional terms
    • Use keywords as a way include terms where no comparable subject exists
  2. Spelling:
    • Many databases utilise American spellings
      • ANAESTHESIA = ANESTHESIA
      • PAEDIATRICS = PEDIATRICS
    • Some databases allow the use of wildcards
    • Depending on the database, ? and * can be used to indicate optional characters
      • PAEDIATRICS = P?EDIATRICS

3. Building your search (once you've logged into a database)

  1. ​Build your search incrementally (one step-at-a-time)
    • ​BARIATRICS
    • BARIATRICS AND ASSESSMENT
    • BARIATRICS AND TREATMENT OUTCOME AND PREOPERATIVE PERIOD
    • BARIATRICS AND TREATMENT OUTCOMEAND PREOPERATIVE PERIOD​ AND PEDIATRIC​S
  2. Using Boolean search logic to expand/narrow your results
    • OR= expand the search results
      • PREOPERATIVE PERIOD OR PREOPERATIVE CARE
    • ​AND= narrow the search results
      • BARIATRICS AND PREOPERATIVE PERIOD
    • NOT= exclude certain terms
      • ​CHILD NOT ADULT
    • Use brackets to prioritise the order
      • BARIATRICS AND (PREOPERATIVE PERIOD OR PREOPERATIVE CARE)

4. Limiting your search results

  1. ​Add your limiters incrementally (one step-at-a-time)
  2. Use additional subject terms to limit your search
    • Start broad, then narrow your search
    • Be careful not to use terms that are too narrow, or that do not return many results in their own right
    • Broad term =HUMANS [this would eliminate articles about animals]
    • Narrower term =CHILD
  3. Limit your results to a particular date range
    • Publication Year = 2000 to current
  4. Limit your search by language
    • Language = English
  5. Limit your search to a type of article
    • Publication Type = Review articles
  6. Limit your search by age range
    • Age Group = All Child
    • This can be used as an alternative to adding a limiting subject heading
  7. Focus your terms
    • Return results where the term is considered a major point of the article
    • This can be very useful when using generic terms that return a large number of results
  8. Use keywords to highlight terms in the citation (or use CTRL-F to highlight terms in a result list)

5. Citation mapping tools

What is citation mapping?

Citation mapping tracks an article’s cited and citing references through two generations of papers, allowing researchers to visually discover an article’s wider relationships to other related papers.

How to use citation mapping as part of a literature search.

At the start of research:

  • to quickly gain an overview of topic and identify gaps in research

After traditional database searching:

  • to export reference lists and cited by papers from key evidence
  • to find evidence outside of traditional databases

Monash Health Library has an excellent Citation Tools Map showing the various tools available and how they can be used.

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