RLO Transcript: How to conduct a literature search
This is a transcript of the Reusable Learning Object (RLO) entitled "How to conduct a literature search", online at:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet/rlos/studyskills/lit_search/
Selecting a database
If you want to find information on a particular topic, you must first decide which database or databases are likely to include relevant information on your chosen subject area. The example we are going to use is "Does vaccination prevent teenagers from contracting rubella?" and we are going to use CINAHL, which is one of the key databases for information on nursing  and allied health literature. The following principles can be applied when searching any database.

Once you have logged on to the database, (remember you will need a password) and worked through the welcome screens, you will arrive at the main search page where you will input your search terms.
Search terms
The search page provides the starting point for access to the vast store of references available within the database. You need to key in your search terms in order to retrieve relevant articles. Firstly, let's see what happens if you type in a whole search questions. Type in the following:

"Does vaccination prevent teenagers from contracting rubella?"

And hit the search button. You will see that the database has returned  no results because it cannot make sense of the whole sentence. Instead, you will need to break down your search statement into the main words.In our example, these might include

Vaccination 	teenagers	  rubella

You will need to search for each of these terms individually in a new search.Try that now, enter the search terms into the database and see how many "hits" you get.
Alternative terms
It is also useful to think of alternative keywords to describe your subject area. Researchers may have used slightly different terminology to express their ideas and there may be differences between clinical and lay terminology, or between the terms used in the UK and the United States, including the different spellings.

This table shows some of the different terms that you may have identified for our search about the use of rubella vaccine for teenagers. Now try keying some of these alternative terms and see what happens. Note the differences in the number of results returned for each term. 

Vaccination	Teenagers	Rubella	
Vaccine
Immunisation
Immunization
Inoculation	Adolescents
Youths	German measles	

Activity
Now try the following activity.

See how many alternative terms you can come up with for the words that appear in the boxes when you hit the start button. You will be working against the clock and will have a minute in total.

This exercise illustrates the range of terms that you might need to search in a database to find information on a given subject. When you search a database, you might like to enter some of these additional search terms and see how the hit rates compare.
.
Combining searches
When conducting literature searches, you may need to combine one or more search terms together in order to retrieve more precise results, using the words AND or OR. Look at the diagram and click on each of the buttons to see the effects of this.
AND
By combining terms using the word AND you will narrow your search retrieving only those articles that match ALL of the search terms. These results should be more relevant to your chosen subject. Using our example, try typing in:

"Vaccination AND Rubella"

Let’s see what this does to our search. Compared with the searches you conducted using alternative terms, you can see that the number of “Hits” has decreased because now the search has been limited to only those articles which specifically discuss vaccination against rubella.
OR
In contrast, terms expressing similar concepts are combined using the word OR, which broadens your search to include references which match ANY of your search terms. You would use this approach if you think that there is more than one term to describe your subject area. Using our example, try typing in:

Vaccination OR immunization

Let's see how this affects our search. You’ll notice that the number of hits has increased because the search has been broadened to include either of these two terms.
Combining methods
You can combine the two methods for refining your search together which will produce a very focused search. Try that here. Check the focus box next to rubella and press continue. Then select diagnosis.

How many results do you have now?
Resources
The following resources (online and printed) contain further reading and material relevant to this RLO, which may help deepen your understanding of the subject matter. 

Title	Description	
What is Referencing? (RLO) 	An introduction to referencing and its purpose.	
Using databases to find journal articles (RLO)	An introduction to online databases of journals relevant to nurses (eg CINAHL, BNI).	
What are journals? (RLO)	Introduction to academic, professional, general and subject-based journals for nurses.	
Advanced literature searching (RLO)	How to construct literature search enquiries using the thesaurus, focus or explode your search, use the search term taxonomy to refine your search and combine these methods into an advance search protocol. 	
Referencing your work with modified Harvard (RLO)	Introduction to the modified Harvard style of literature referencing, incorporating an interactive referencing tool for students.	

Glossary
Aspirin: A mild analgesic used in the treatment of headaches and mild pain
Boolean operators: Words that are used to combine search terms together eg AND or OR 
CINAHL: A database of nursing and nursing related journals
German measles: The common name for rubella infection
Paracetamol: An analgesic and anti-inflammatory used in the treatment of mild pain or inflammation
Rubella: A common viral infection, characterised by fever and a red macula rash

Document last updated: 19/7/07