Search tips
Information retrieval can be a time-consuming process. Here are tips to make your search more efficient.
How do I find keywords?
Finding good keywords is one of the most important and difficult things to do when searching. Start from your search query and pick out keywords, words that summarize the entire search query. These are the words you should use when searching different databases.
Plan your search
Start planning your search. This means that you need to analyze and define your search query. Here are some examples of what you need to consider:
- Why are you searching for the information? Do you want a general overview of the topic, or in-depth?
- What type of material do you need? Books, journals, legal documents, or statistics ...?
- How extensive does the material need to be?
- Is the timeliness of the information a requirement?
- Which language do you want the material to be written in?
When searching in databases, you can often apply filters that delimit your hits, for example by language or publication date.
Medical subject words
In the subject area of medicine and health, it is usually best to search using controlled subject headings, for example the Swedish MeSH. MeSH terms are used as controlled keywords in the PubMed database, but you can always use them to look up keywords in other databases.
- Swedish MeSH External link.
With the help of Swedish MeSH you can find good keywords to use when searching in databases. - SveMed+ External link.
You can also use SveMed+ to find MeSH terms. If you do a search, you will see suggestions for MeSH terms in the right-hand column. - Dictionaries Opens in new window.
Use dictionaries to find terms that you can use when searching the databases. - KIB -Termer för upplevelser och bemötande External link.
On the Karolinska Institutet University Library's website you will find a compilation of useful terms about experiences and treatment.
Tips
Have you found a good article? Look in the database and see which keywords describe that article. Then you can try using those words in your search.
Swedish MeSH
Swedish MeSH is a controlled vocabulary thesaurus that you can use when searching for scientific material in various databases. Swedish MeSH can also be used as a dictionary when you want to translate your keywords from Swedish to English or vice versa.
What is a thesaurus?
A thesaurus can be described as a dictionary of medical terms. In many databases you can use thesaurus, but they can also be called MeSH or Subject Headings. A thesaurus is a list of controlled keywords, which means that specific terms have been selected to describe a particular term. These terms are arranged in a hierarchical structure, where broad terms are high up in the hierarchy, and narrow terms are far down. This can help you when you need to broaden your search to get more hits. When you use controlled keywords you usually get more relevant hits.
What is Swedish MeSH?
The abbreviation MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings, and is a medical subject heading produced by the National Library of Medicine in the United States. The Swedish translation, Swedish MeSH, is translated by the Karolinska Institutet's University Library. Therefore, sometimes translations of Swedish terms, which have no American equivalent, can sometimes be missing. Keep in mind that Swedish MeSH is not a Swedish-English dictionary in the ordinary sense, the translation from Swedish to English only shows which terms you should use when searching different databases.
- Swedish MeSH External link.
In Swedish MeSH you will find medical subject headings, both in Swedish and English.
Example from Swedish MeSH:
If you want to find a topic that describes "critical life-changing events," you could use one of these terms:
- Life experiences
- Life experience
- Event, life change
- Events, life change
In Swedish MeSH you can see that it is the subject term Life Change Events that you should use. Under synonyms you can also see that the term captures all of the above terms with one single term.
MeSH in other databases
MeSH is primarily used in the PubMed database, but you can also use MeSH terms when you start your search in other databases. Often the same subject headings are used, although there are a different thesaurus, but remember that you can get inferior search results if the terms do not match. Thesaurus for other databases can be found directly in the database, and then there is no Swedish translation.
Search example:
Children for disabled parents could be sought with the word combination:
child AND parents AND disabilities , but then you do not know if it is the children or parents who are disabled. If you search in Swedish MeSH for the concept of disabled parents, you will find the following term: Child of impaired parents . In Cinahl's thesaurus the term Children of impaired parents is used to describe this instead.
Where do I search?
It depends on the type of material you want to find. Different search tools cover different subjects and contain different types of materials.
The Library search tool
The library search tool is a good place to start searching. Here you can search either under the tab "Books and e-books" or under "Articles".
Books and e-books
When you search for books and e-books with the Library search tool, you are automatically redirected to LIBRIS, the national catalogue for Swedish libraries. Note that the search is restricted to Luleå University of Technology, but you can remove the restriction if you want to see if a title exists in another library. As an employee of Region Norrbotten or as a medical student at Sunderby sjukhus, you have access to e-books marked with the text "Medical e-library, digital resources". However, if it says "Luleå University Library, Digital Resources", you do not have access to the e-book.
Articles
In the Library search tool, under the "Articles" tab, you search in several databases and journals at the same time, and that means you might get a large number of hits. In that case, it might be better to use a subject database instead, where you can make specific definitions.
- The Library Search Tool Opens in new window.
Search for books, e-books and articles via the Medical e-library's search box.
Databases
A database is a collection of materials which have been made searchable. It can cover many subjects, or be subject-specific, thus collecting just those materials in a specific discipline.
Some databases contain full text materials, while others provide only references. They may also contain factual data such as statistics, standards and patents. It is good to find out what type of material you can find in the database.
In a database, you can often narrow your search in other ways than you can in the Library search tool. For example, you can limit your search to a specific age group or geographic area. Databases work in different ways so it can be a good idea to look in the database help section to get more detailed information about how you should proceed when searching the database.
- Databases Opens in new window.
Medical e-library's range of databases.
If you search with Google you will miss out on a lot of scientific material. Therefore, it is often better to use the library search systems and databases. You can also use the service Google Scholar to find scientific material. All the material in Google Scholar is not scientific, and the selection criteria are unclear. It is therefore important to critically examine the sources.
- Google Scholar External link.
Google search service for scientific publications.
How do I search?
When you search in a database or with the Library Search Tool, you can control your search by using different search techniques. You can also narrow your search in different ways.
Common search techniques
There are several different search techniques that you can use to control how the database interprets your search query. Keep in mind that not all search techniques work everywhere. To be sure what works in a particular database, look in the help section of the database.
Phrase search
If the words you use when searching should be in a certain order, you can add quotation marks ("...") around them, for example around " World War II ". Then the database searches for the words as a collective term, exactly in the order you wrote them. If you search without quotation marks, the database can search for each word separately. Then you will most likely get many hits that are about World War II , but not specifically World War II
Truncation
A word can have several different endings, such as nurses , nurses or nurses . To include all variants of the word in your search, you can add an asterisk (*) after the word. This is called truncation. Example: school * gives hits on all words that start at school , such as school, school, schools, schoolchildren and truant. If you do not truncate, you will only get hits on exactly the word you are looking for. For example, if you apply to school, you will miss all the meetings where the words school, schools and schools appear.
Boolean search
To combine several different keywords, you can use the Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT.
- AND is used when you want all the words you are searching for to be in the same article. It therefore limits the number of hits. For example, if you search for television AND movies , you will find documents where both television and movies are included somewhere in the text.
- OR is used when you want one or the other word to be included in the hits. It increases the number of hits. You can, for example, use OR when you want to search for several different synonyms or spelling variations. If you search for television OR movies , the hits will contain either the word television, movies or both.
- NOT is used when you want to limit the number of hits by excluding a word. A search on television NOT movies returns hits that contain the word television , but removes all hits that contain the word movies . When you search with NOT, however, you can miss interesting hits that contain both the word television and movies.
If you use more than one operator, you need to add parentheses to show the database how to interpret the search. Example: (children OR kids) AND television . The matches then contain either the words children , kids or both, together with the word television .
Controlled subject words
Some databases contain subject glossaries with controlled subject words that you can use when searching. Controlled subject words mean that you have decided which word to use to describe a certain concept. When searching with controlled subject words, you must find the word in the database's subject dictionary and select the word you want to use, otherwise you will do a regular search with free text words. Use the help section of the database to get more detailed information on how to search with controlled keywords in the database. Keep in mind that the terms in the subject dictionaries may vary depending on the database you are searching in.
Field search
Field Search is an advanced search that you can use to narrow your search results. In a database, publications usually contain information about the author, title, year of publication, keywords and so on. This allows you to use different fields to choose whether you want to search for a specific author, title, magazine title and more.
Chain search
By looking at the reference lists of different publications, you can get tips on new sources that you can use in your work. This is called manual search or chain search. In citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, you can also see who has referred to the source.
Narrow your search
In most databases, you can narrow your search by filtering your hit list, for example based on publication date, language or source type. This can be helpful in reducing the number of hits and finding the ones that are most relevant.Another useful limitation that you can use is " Peer reviewed " or " Peer reviewed journals" . Then you should only get material that has been scientifically reviewed, but you must always check for yourself that it is correct.
Adjusting your search
It is important to remember that information retrieval is a process where you have to try. You may need to change database, change your keywords or combine them in different ways to get a good result.
Too few hits
If you get too few or incorrect hits when you search, you may need to change your keywords. It may then be helpful to use more general terms and concepts to broaden your search. You can also try truncating the keywords using an asterisk or combining synonyms using OR so as not to miss different variations of the words. Also, make sure that you have spelled the keywords correctly.
Too many hits
If you get too many hits, try using more specific words to narrow down your search. You can also add keywords using AND, narrow your search with filters or use the NOT operator to exclude hits.
Document your search
A scientific approach requires transparency and reproducibility. This means that everything you investigate must be structured in a clear way, so that someone else can repeat or control your investigation. When you write an essay, report or other assignment, it is common for you to also report how you found the information for your assignment, therefore you should document your entire search process. Many databases have a function called Search History . There you can see which searches and which delimitations you have made and save them to your computer. In addition to documenting your search results, you need to enter:
- When you did the search
- Which databases and search services you used
- Number of hits in each database
- Which keywords and which search technique did you use
- Which filters you used, such as peer reviewed, language or year.
- How you made your selection of items
Want to learn more?
- Education Opens in new window.
You can find open courses and films on our training pages.
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