Systematic Searching

A systematic approach to organise and manage literature searching processes. Suggested steps:

1. Formulate and define your research question
   - Block building, PICO or other frameworks
   - Mind mapping

2. Find search terms, keywords, phrases
   - Find subject headings, sub-headings, thesaurus terms, synonyms, index terms
   - Highly relevant papers/ key papers – words in title/ abstract/ author keywords/ subject terms
   - Published search strategies e.g. in Systematic Reviews

3. Develop search strategy
   - Consistent search strategy using Boolean operators, truncation, etc
   - Evaluate results and refine, think about your inclusion/ exclusion criteria
   - Retrieval of highly relevant/ key articles

4. Selecting databases
   - Select relevant databases for an exhaustive/ comprehensive search,
   - Consider Grey literature or relevant websites or repositories relevant to the research topic

5. Documenting search methods
   - Finalised search strategy, databases searched, filters/ limiters used (e.g. language, publication years), number of search results, date search performed
   - PRISMA  can be used as a guide
   - Database personal account allows saved searches and creation of alerts for notification of new publications