learn how to search literature. Boolean operator.

1. HOW TO SEARCH LITERATURE
Dr Nazuk sharma

2. TO be discussed….
• What is literature?
• What is literature search?
• Purpose of literature search?
• Types of literature?
• Boolean searching
• How to search?

3. What is literature
A collection of all the scholarly writings on a topic

5. What is literature search
• Methodical search for all of the literature
published on a topic.
• An effective search of the literature can be
done quickly, but demands an organised and
systematic approach
• Important to keep records of the searches
made and the information found.

6. Purpose of a Literature Search
• Broadens your knowledge on a topic & helps us to be
updated.
• Review existing critical opinions/theories
• Identify current research findings on a topic
• Identify potential research methods or models you
could use in various studies & experiments
• Having carried out research it enabes comparison
with your own research findings

7. Types of Literature
1. Research Journals
• Original research Articles
• Commentaries/replies
• Reviews
2. Standard books

8. 3. Online reports
 Census
 Research institutes
 Government organizations
4. Online

9. BOOLEAN SEARCHING
• Boolean searching is based on a system of
symbolic logic which was developed by
George Boole, who was a 19th century English
mathematician.

10. USING BOOLEAN
When performing a Boolean search, you
must first choose keywords that best
describe your topic.
Then you must connect the keywords
using operators.

11. The AND operator
• AND links terms together in a way that makes
your search more narrow. It tells the computer
that you want records that contain all the
words you specify.
• For instance, if you search only records
containing the words “Smoking” and “Lung
cancer” your results will return only those
articles containing BOTH terms.

12. AND
The purple space where they intersect represents all
the records that would be returned by the search
Smoking and Lung cancer

13. The OR operator
• OR broadens, or widens, your results.
• For instance, a search on smoking or lung cancer will
give you records that not only have both smoking
and lung cancer in them, but also the records that
contain only smoking and only lung cancer.
• Therefore, you will obtain more results by using the
OR operator.

14. OR
The purple space represents all the records that
would be returned by the search " smoking or
lung cancer."

15. The NOT operator
NOT is a term that allows you to exclude, or eliminate,
certain words from your search.

16. NOT
The purple spaces represent all the records that
would be returned by the search “smoking not
cancer," and “cancer not smoking.”

17. At Some Other Search Strategies
Let’s Look
* Truncation & ? Wildcards #

18. Truncation
• The truncation symbol (*) serves as a substitute
for any string of zero or more characters.
Example: therapy, therapies, therapeutics,
You could combine them all in an OR relationship:
(therapy OR therapies OR therapeutics OR
therapeutic)
But an easier way is by the use of truncation.
therap*

19. Type: “diarrh*”
finds articles with word :
- Diarrhea
- Diarrhoea
- Diarrheal
- Diarrhoeal
- etc.

20. Wildcards
• The wildcard symbol (?) serves as a substitute
for one character or none.
• For example the search m?cdonald retrieves
both mcdonald and macdonald

21. 1
• Define your topic
2
• Choose the resources to search
3
• Choose your search terms
4
• Compile the strategy and run the search
5
• Find the full text
You should work through the 5 steps of an
effective literature search. Working logically
through these steps ensures your search is
focused, systematic and effective.
I’ve never done any searching before,
where should I begin?

22. What do you want the literature to tell you?
Ask questions…
Question x4 by Mike Coghlan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/4256561918/
Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence

23. PICO Model
PICO or PECO is an acronym used to identify four
primary components of a well formulated clinical
question.
P = Patient Population or Problem
I = Intervention or Exposure
C = Comparison
O = Outcome

24. Which databases should I search?
This is step 2 of the literature search process. The databases you
choose depend very much on the search topic. Each database
covers a different topic or type of information and you must
choose the ones that are most appropriate for your search
question.
PubMed/Medline
Biomedicine and clinical
medicine
Embase
Biomedical and clinical
medicine
Global Health
International public health
Google Scholar
Information about books ad
journals
Cochrane Library
Healthcare interventions
CINAHL
Nursing and allied health
Popline
Reproductive and sexual
health
Web of Science
All academic disciplines,
good for social sciences
NLM
National library of medicine

25. Where to begin a search ?
Google - unfiltered haystack approach
Google scholar – a more scholarly approach
PubMed – Recent & advance search

26. How to search Google scholar

27. Google Scholar
Scholar.google.
com
Can search for
books and articles
Can do an
advanced search

28. Title links to
abstract and
possible source of
full text
Link to articles
that cited the
work
Link to related
articles

29. How to search PubMed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

30. PubMed Home Page

31. Click MeSH Database

32. MeSH Database
Terms in the database are called
Medical Subject Headings or MeSH.
is a “controlled vocabulary list” of more than
25,000 subject headings.
10-15 MeSH are assigned to each article
in PubMed.
The MeSH index of 10-15 subject headings
is like a keyword abstract of the article.
MeSH are updated annually in December.

33. Create a Search Strategy Plan
Identify the question and key concepts:
advanced nursing practice and
trends in graduate nursing education
Write the search program using
medical subject headings (MeSH)

34. a
a
(Note: If there is a Boolean OR relationship,
start with the “OR” statement first.)
advanced nursing practiceEnter
a
a
Searchand click

35. Term Definitions

36. Tree Structures are
terms arranged in a hierarchy.
MeSH

37. Terms are listed from
broadest to narrowest.
If Advanced Practice Nursing
yields zero results, try using a
broader term such as: Nursing

38. Click Add to search builder

39. The first term is in
the search program “box”
MeSH

40. a
a
graduate nursing educationEnter
Searchand click

41. Sub-headings narrow the “meaning” of a MeSH term.
They are a “subset” of all the articles under the
MeSH term: Education, Nursing, Graduate

42. 1) Check the box next
to the subheadinga

43. Click Add to search builder

44. Boolean Logic - AND
advanced nursing
practice
education, nursing,
graduate/
trends
and

45. Click Search PubMed
Final Search Strategy

46. Search Results

47. PubMed identifies
29 articles

48. Select Filters
such as English

49. …and published during
the last 5 years.

50. Results are reduced
From 29 to 22

51. Click Show additional filters

52. Scroll to article # 18

53. Select article(s).X
X
Scroll up

54. Click Display Settings:

55. Select Abstract, change to Pub Date to
sort to most recent articles appearing first,
Applythen click

56. Click for MeSH terms index.+

57. .
Click Send to: and select
File to save citations to a file on your computer or
Clipboard to temporarily store selected citations or
E-mail to send citations to self or colleague

58. …or click icon for full text.

60. Article type

61. Search field tags
• Helpful tags (also appear in Advance search)
• [au] author
• [ti] title
• [tiab] title/abstract
• [tw]text words
• Examples : Microbiocides[ti] OR HIV[tw]

62. Other Searching Featuresa
a
1) MeSH, phrase, & title word searching
2) Truncation

63. Enter and click a
a
human genome Search

64. 3) Then click Add to search builder
2) Select AND
1) Check the box next
to the MeSH heading

65. Click Search PubMed

66. Enter and click“dark matter” Search

67. PubMed identifies
7 articles

68. Enter and click“dark matter” [ti] Search

69. Results are narrowed to 5

70. Truncation

71. Enter gene* to truncate.

72. PubMed locates:
gene
generation
generated
genetic

73. Sign into NCBI

74. Register for an account
Create account

75. Search Filters

76. Click My NCBI

77. Click Manage Filters

78. Select English & Humans
Select Properties

79. Under Publication Types select

80. Under Subsets select

81. You may select up to 15 filters. These selections override the
default filters of Review and Free Full Text. These filters apply
to searches run while signed into you’re My NCBI account.

82. Example of results with
customized filters

83. Example of results with
standard filters

84. Save Search

85. Click Save Search

86. Click Training & Tutorials for hands-on learning.

87. Click Save to receive automatic
email updates of newly
published articles on this topic.

88. To conclude
we can now see that an effective
search of the literature can be done
quickly, but demands an organised
and systematic approach

89. Hope they will set you on the right path
to . . .