- Formulate the research question.
- Identify the key concepts.
- Develop search terms – free-text terms.
- Develop search terms – controlled vocabulary terms.
- Search fields.
- Phrase searching, wildcards and proximity operators.
- Boolean operators.
- Search limits.
How do you use search strategies?
- Choosing search terms.
- Searching with keywords.
- Searching for exact phrases.
- Using truncated and wildcard searches.
- Searching with subject headings.
- Using Boolean logic.
- Citation searching.
What are the 5 steps to creating a search strategy?
- Step one: Define your research question or ‘problem’.
- Step two: choose which databases you will search. …
- Step three: Identify and map your key concepts. …
- Step four: Identify your key words. …
- Step five: Build your concepts and keywords into a search strategy.
What makes a good search strategy?
Database search strategies use a
combination of free text and subject headings (where applicable)
. A keyword search usually looks for your search terms in the title and abstract of a reference. … Some databases will find the exact word or phrase, so make sure your spelling is accurate or you will miss references.
How do you create a search strategy for a systematic review?
- Formulate the research question.
- Identify the key concepts.
- Develop search terms – free-text terms.
- Develop search terms – controlled vocabulary terms.
- Search fields.
- Phrase searching, wildcards and proximity operators.
What are the 3 steps to creating a search strategy?
- Step 1: Develop a research question or choose a topic.
- Step 2: Identify the first step in your research process.
- Step 3: Develop your search strategy using PICO.
- Step 4: Brainstorm your search terms or identify terminology that must be included in your search.
What is an effective search?
An effective search is one that:
Returns results on highly likely matches or on the correct individuals
.
Doesn’t overwhelm you with too many results or underwhelm you with too little or no results
.
What is a Boolean search strategy?
Boolean searching
allows the user to combine or limit words and phrases in an online search in order to retrieve relevant results
. Using the Boolean terms: AND, OR, NOT, the searcher is able to define relationships among concepts. OR. Use OR to broaden search results.
What are the four literature review strategies?
Select only those sources that are most relevant to your project. 3) Analyzing:
summarize, synthesize, critique, and compare
your sources in order to assess the field of research as a whole. 4) Drafting: develop a thesis or claim to make about the existing research and decide how to organize your material.
Is it important to identify keywords when compiling a search strategy in order to search the library databases effectively?
Keywords are the search terms that you enter into the database to describe each of your concepts. When you search the database, you are usually searching the words in the Title and Abstract, not the full-text article.
Which symbols are used in a truncation search?
Truncation — a symbol added to the end of the root of a word to instruct the database to search for all forms of a word.
The asterisk (*)
is used in many databases for truncation.
What is a sensitive search strategy?
Sensitivity and precision are two parameters to evaluate the performances of a search strategy. Sensitivity is
defined as the proportion of relevant studies retrieved
, while precision is the proportion of retrieved studies that are relevant.
What is a search string example?
A search string is a combination of keywords, truncation symbols, and boolean operators you enter into the search box of a library database or search engine. Example:
educat* AND student*
gives results that include “education, educator, educating” and “student, students”.
What is basic search?
A ‘Basic’ Literature search
involves searching using your own search terms
. This is often known as free text or keyword searching. It is fine to perform such a search for an essay or assignment or when performing a ‘scoping search’ for a research proposal.
What are the 3 Boolean operators used for Boolean searching?
They connect your search words together to either narrow or broaden your set of results. The three basic boolean operators are:
AND, OR, and NOT
.
What are the most effective search techniques?
- 1: Use unique, specific terms. …
- 2: Use the minus operator (-) to narrow the search. …
- 3: Use quotation marks for exact phrases. …
- 4: Don’t use common words and punctuation. …
- 5: Capitalization. …
- 6: Drop the suffixes. …
- 7: Maximize AutoComplete. …
- 8: Customize your searches.