CIAP offers online user guides and instructional videos as well as regular training sessions.
WSLHD Libraries also offer training on effective searching and are available for individual consultations and group sessions which can be tailored to your needs - see our training guide.
Using database subject indexes or thesauri
Using the best search terms is fundamental to locating all relevant information. Many databases, including Medline, PsycInfo and Embase, offer assistance by guiding you to preferred terms in a subject index. This saves you having to think of all the potential keywords for a search. MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings and is the controlled vocabulary used by the National Library of Medicine indexers for Medline. It has also been adopted and adapted by other databases.
Note when searching across databases you will need to check the terms in subject indexes as they will vary from one database to another.
In a database such as Medline which has a subject index it helps to focus on each of your search concepts separately and then combine them using the search history.
Combining keywords with Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT, NEAR:
Boolean operators allow you to be specific when combining your search terms.
Smoking OR Cigarettes would give you results where either term is present.
Smoking AND Oncology would give you results where both terms are present.
Cancer NOT Smoking would exclude results where a term was present. Use with caution as you might be excluding relevant results, for example an article which was looking at various causes of cancer including smoking would be excluded.
Cancer NEAR Smoking can be used to specify that keywords are found near each other which can increase relevance. Some databases will let you specify whether the keywords are within a specific number of words of each other, or in specific fields in the reference.
Check the help options for the specific database you are using to see how Boolean operators and other search functions are applied.
Limit options or facet searching:
Many databases allow you to use limit options or facets. Basically you do a search and will then see options to limit the results in different ways, e.g. to recent publications or results from a particular journal or another subject term. The results after limiting are a sub-set of your original search.
Medline offers an extensive list of limits, with patient age being a particularly useful one.
Related articles:
Many databases including Google Scholar and Medline offer you a link to related articles which share characteristics such as title, abstract and subject keywords, authors and citations.
Citation chaining:
It is always a good idea to check the reference list of a relevant article or other resource, especially a recent one. Some databases will help you by providing links to referenced articles. They can also take it a step further by linking from a resource to Cited by references (i.e. resources which cite that resource) taking you to more recent resources in a citation chain. This can be really helpful but of course they are not necessarily relevant to your search topic. Medline and Google Scholar both offer citation chaining.
Field searching:
Field searching is where you specify where in a reference you want to search. This is often available through "advanced" search options of databases and library catalogs. For example you might want to use field searching to search for works by a specific author or search for a specific title.
Truncation
You can truncate a keyword to find all alternative words with the same stem e.g. neonat* which would retrieve neonate and neonatology.
Wildcards
You can use a wildcard symbols to replace a single letter in the middle of your word e.g. organi#ation which gives organisation or organization
A different symbol can replace multiple letters e.g. tum?r which gives tumor or tumour
These symbols vary from database to database so it is important to check the database 'help' information or 'search tips'
Phrase searching:
Putting quotation marks around words to turn them into a phrase can improve relevance because it restricts results to where the words are together.
e.g. "smoking cessation programs" or "lung cancer"
An expert search is a search statement (including subjects, keywords, boolean logic etc) created by a search expert that can help you refine your search.
Various websites provide expert searches that you can re-use. If you re-use an expert search strategy, it is important to always check and make sure all the required search terms are being included in your search. Search terms, subjects and synonyms change over time so always assume the search strategy is not up to date. You may also like to conduct your search, then add the expert search terms in later which you have missed. Examples of websites that provide expert searches are below.
