What Is A Search Strategy?

A search strategy is an organised structure of key terms used to search a database . The search strategy combines the key concepts of your search question in order to retrieve accurate results. Your search strategy will account for all: possible search terms.

What are the 3 steps to creating a search strategy?

1. Step 1: Develop a research question or choose a topic.
2. Step 2: Identify the first step in your research process.
3. Step 3: Develop your search strategy using PICO.
4. Step 4: Brainstorm your search terms or identify terminology that must be included in your search.

How do you develop a search strategy?

1. Formulate the research question.
2. Identify the key concepts.
3. Develop search terms – free-text terms.
4. Develop search terms – controlled vocabulary terms.
5. Search fields.
6. Phrase searching, wildcards and proximity operators.
7. Boolean operators.
8. Search limits.

What are the 5 steps to creating a search strategy?

1. Step one: Define your research question or ‘problem’.
2. Step two: choose which databases you will search. ...
3. Step three: Identify and map your key concepts. ...
4. Step four: Identify your key words. ...
5. Step five: Build your concepts and keywords into a search strategy.

What is search strategy in systematic review?

A well constructed search strategy is the core of your systematic review and will be reported on in the methods section of your paper. The search strategy retrieves the majority of the studies you will assess for eligibility & inclusion . The quality of the search strategy also affects what items may have been missed.

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. ... This expands the search to include all records containing either concept.

What are the 4 Boolean operators?

Boolean operators are the words “AND”, “OR” and “NOT” .

What are the four 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 steps to search?

1. Introduction.
2. Step 1: Develop a Topic. Select Topic. Identify Keywords. ...
3. Step 2: Locate Information. Search Strategy. Books. ...
4. Step 3: Evaluate Information. Evaluate Sources. ...
5. Step 4: Write. Organize / Take Notes. ...
6. Step 5: Cite Sources. Citation Styles. ...
7. Step 6: Legal / Ethical Use. Copyright.

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 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 is the broadest search strategy?

High Sensitivity is the broadest search, to include ALL relevant material, but may also include less relevant materials. High Specificity is the most targeted search to include only the most relevant result set, but may miss some relevant materials.

What does a search string look like?

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 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.

How do you find keywords for a systematic review?

There are many ways to locate these terms, including background reading, dictionaries, regular and database thesauri or subject headings and text mining tools . The process of searching will also help identify more terms.

How do you do a search strategy in PubMed?

1. search one concept at a time, specifying fields, e.g. Title/Abstract, or subject headings, e.g. MeSH Major Topic, from the menu.
2. add each completed concept to History using the Add to History link, one after another.