- Define the topic
Write down your topic and consider it from all angles. Be specific about what it is you want to discover. Write it out in the form of a question. Ex: what is the relationship between childhood leukemia and the use of pesticides/ herbicides?
- Break it down
Are you looking at a disease/ condition? Do you want to know diagnosis/ therapy/ outcome/ prognosis/ risk factors, etc.? Is there a particular age group/ ethnic group/ gender? Do you want to know adverse effects/ prevention & control/ mortality/ etiology? Ex: childhood/ leukemia/ relationship/ pesticides/ herbicides
- Decide on the words and phrases that describe your concept
Consider all possible words or phrases that might be used to describe the topic. These should include synonyms, spelling variations, word endings (singular, plural), variant terminology, and related terms. Ex: childhood/youth-relationship/risk factors
- Search each concept as a separate set
Create separate sets for each part of your topic. Use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) whenever possible.
- Combine your sets
Define the relationship between individual sets. Use Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT. “ANDing” two sets together finds citations that contain both set concepts. “ORing” two sets finds citations that contain either one or both set concepts. Using “NOT” will retrieve citations that contain one set concept, but not the other.
- Use Limiters
Limits such as language, age groups, gender, publication types, year ranges and human studies will help you to focus your topic.
- Display your results
Are any of the articles right on target? Did you get too many? Too few? Try checking the subject headings in the article which comes closest to your topic.
- Refine the search
Try steps 1-5 over again. Broaden or narrow your search concepts as needed. Ex: staphylococcus aureus --> staphyloccus infections (vice versa).
|
|
