the general process of seeking out information. Such as searching for information on Google

A search strategy is an organized combination of keywords, phrases, subject headings, and limiters used to search a database.

Your search strategy will include:

• keywords 

• boolean operators

• variations of search terms (synonyms, suffixes)

• subject headings 

Your search strategy may include:

• truncation (where applicable)

• phrases (where applicable)

• limiters (date, language, age, publication type, etc.)

A search strategy usually requires several iterations. You will need to test the strategy along the way to ensure that you are finding relevant articles. It's also a good idea to review your search strategy with your co-authors. They may have ideas about terms or concepts you may have missed.

Additionally, each database you search is developed differently. You will need to adjust your strategy for each database your search.  For instance, Embase is a European database, many of the medical terms are slightly different than those used in MEDLINE and PubMed.

Reference Lists

One technique you can use to find more research on your topic is to look at the reference list of a resource. If they cite other researchers, there is an excellent chance they are on the same or similar subject matter. 

Steps

1. Find one good article 

2. Look at their references and find articles that look useful 

3. Type the title of a resource into a library search to try and gain access to the full text.

   • ScienceDirect provides links to articles in the reference list for each paper.  

Cited By

Another technique you can use to find more research on your topic is to find other resources which have cited a resource you found. If other researchers cited that resource, there is an excellent chance they are on the same or similar subject matter. 

Google Scholar is one useful tool to conduct this type of research. 

Steps:

1. Find one good resource on your topic
2. Type the title of the resource into Google Scholar 
3. If an article in Google Scholar has been cited by another source, a "Cited by" link will appear below the entry in search results.
4. Clicking the "Cited by" link will display a list of articles that have cited the original article.
   • Many of these articles are also likely to display a "Cited by" link and this process can be repeated many times.

For example: 

Reminders

• Not all resources in Google Scholar will be peer-reviewed scholarly sources, so be careful before using any results you find
• NEVER PAY FOR ACCESS TO A RESOURCE
  • If you can't get access to the full text through Google Scholar, try typing the title into a library database search. 

Search filters are used to limit search results.

Many databases feature built-in search filters commonly used to limit search results by age group, publication type, study type, and more.

If you use the filter rather than a keyword, you can guarantee that the resources returned are relevant to your topic. 

Keywords search everywhere for the term, including full text (unless otherwise specified). The keyword may only appear once in the text of a paper rather than being a substantial aspect of the article. Whereas when you choose a specific category under a filter, that category will be a substantial aspect of the article.

For example, in a PubMed, the age filter. 

• The search (Sleep AND teenager) will yield many results, but in some resources, "teenagers" might not be the focus of the study or research. Additionally, researchers may use other synonyms, such as adolescence or youth, and the database would not include these resources in the search results. 
• On the other hand, if you search for just the word sleep, then add the filter Adolescence: 13-18 years, all your search results will be specifically about people aged 13-18 and sleep. 

Please see the pages for each database for more information about filters. 

Searching in a database using different fields can be a powerful way to narrow your results. A field is a specific part of a record in a database.

When using the Advanced Search screen databases, look for drop-down boxes or menus to select the field you want to search.

Multiple fields may be combined using Boolean operators.

Using specific field codes in combination with other search techniques can produce more precise searches.

Below are a few of the most common field codes that will help make your searches more precise. 

Title: Searches for the term in just the title 

Subject Terms: Searches for the keywords in the subjects (click here for more information about subject terms).

Abstract: Searches through the abstract where available. Not all resources will have an abstract available, so many resources may be excluded when using this field.

Phrase searching narrows your search results by allowing you to define precisely how you want the words to appear.  

For example,

• If you are searching for information on “alternative therapies,” “heart attacks,” “Xray technicians” or "chronic pain" 

Then you are probably looking for those two words to appear next to each other, with no other words in between, in the document's text. 

To ensure that the database searches this phrase correctly, you can put quotation marks around your search term and force the database to search it as a phrase. 

For example,

If you click on the two examples, you should see when using the phrase searching methods that there are significantly fewer results when quotation marks are added. 

• without quotation marks 

  • High cholesterol

• with quotation marks 

  • "High cholesterol" 

Be careful when you use phrase searching; if you put too many words in quotation marks, the database will likely not find any results. Only use phrase searching on established phrases—words that you can reasonably expect other authors to use.

In the health sciences, health conditions containing more than one word should always be added with quotation marks.  

Another important note is about phrasing searches (when you enclose your keywords in quotation marks). While this can be useful, it can also limit your results.  

For example, searching for "college students" or "university students" means the terms need to be in that exact order, which could make you miss useful results like: 

• Students enrolled in college 

• Students pursuing higher education 

• Students studying at college 

• Undergraduates at college 

• Undergraduates at university 

• College's student body 

• University participants 

Instead, break the concepts about university and student out into separate keyword searches

For example:  

("university" OR college OR "post-secondary" OR "higher education" OR undergrad OR undergraduate) AND (student). 

Truncation is a technique that broadens your search to include various word endings. 

Truncation is useful when one of your keywords has several endings, but all variations represent the same idea.  

Using truncation will help you complete your search faster because you will not have to manually type in and search every variation of the word. 

To truncate a search term, do a keyword search in a database, but remove the ending of the word and add the correct truncation symbol to the end of the word. The database will retrieve results that include every word that begins with the letters you entered. 

For example, 

• surg* = surgery, surgeries, surgeon, or surgical 
• genetic* = genetic, genetics or genetically 

• child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood 

Not all words are suited to truncation. 

For example: 

• mat*= Maternal, Matter, Maternity, Mathematics, Materials and Matrix