Systematic Searching

• Each block represents a concept
• Cluster related subject-terms/ synonyms/ variables/ keywords for each concept block
• Each concept block is searched separately
• Blocks are combined to get final results
  

• Search for each block separately and use the database Search History to combine searches with appropiate Boolean operators.
• Within the same block/ concept, combine subject terms with keywords using the OR operator.
• Across different blocks/ concepts, combine blocks using the AND operator.

• Check if your search strategy retrieves highly relevant/ key papers for your reserach topic.

Boolean logic defines logical relationships between terms in a search. The key Boolean search operators are AND, OR and NOT..

In general, the AND and NOT operators narrow a search . The OR operator broadens a search  Use the NOT operator with caution as it may result in exclusion of studies.

Consider Synonyms and Word Variant – Truncations, Wildcards, Proximity Operators

• Plurals, tenses, alternate spelling, conjunctions, acronyms
• Can specify truncations (e.g., keywords diets, dietary, dietician, dietetics can be searched as one keyword ‘diet*’)
• %, *, $, #,? commonly used as wildcards (e.g. color, colo$r)
• Single versus multiple letter wildcards (to replace exactly one character, or zero to one characters)
• Different syntax for different databases
• Some databases such as Scopus automatically stem words (search for variations on words)
• Can specify proximity of terms – search for two or more words that occur within a specified number of words (or fewer) of each other in the database
• Quoted phrases, ADJ/x, NEAR/x, WITHIN/x commonly used, where x represents two or more words that occur within x number of words of each other in the database. E.g. project N1 manag* will retrieve ‘project manager’, ‘project management’ and ‘managing projects’, ‘management of projects’, ‘project logistics management’, ‘project risk management’.