A search strategy is like a game plan that you come up with to help organize your research. We use search strategies to help organize our search, which in turn, can lead to less frustration during the search process. Coming up with a search strategy also allows us to start thinking more critically about the information we are looking for.
Typically, when developing your search strategy you will consider:
where are the best places to search for the information you are looking for and what to search in that place in order to find the information
Keywords, also called search terms, are the words that you enter into databases to search for information. Why?
Most search tools don’t understand natural language (i.e. sentences), so searching with keywords can help you find articles on your topic. Keywords represent the main ideas of your research topic or research question, and are single-words or short phrases that you use in everyday life to describe your topic.
It is important to remember that your first search will likely not bring back the exact results you are looking for. Research is an iterative process and it's okay if you have to refine, restart and retry a few times! This is why it is important to take notes during your search process on the keywords you use, the combinations you use them in, and any new terms that you come across while searching.
Selecting your keywords is a process that involves:
1) Main Ideas and Concepts
An important step when creating a search strategy is to identify the key concepts of your topic.
Identifying main idea terms:
Practice identifying main ideas with the activity below:
2) Identifying additional keywords:
Let's pretend you are conducting a research paper on the self-care practices of university students with ADHD.
| Narrower Terms | undergraduate students | mindfulness practices | Inattentive ADHD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Idea Terms | university students | self-care | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder |
| Broader Terms | students | well-being | executive functioning disorders |
3) You can then modify the organization of this brainstorm into search components:
| Main Idea Search | university students AND self-care AND Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder |
| Broader Search | students AND well-being AND executive functioning disorders |
| Narrower Search | undergraduate students AND mindfulness practices AND Inattentive ADHD |
You can also modify your search into one comprehensive search, by combining the narrow, broad and main key terms using AND/OR boolean operators:
| Search Strategy | (university students OR students OR undergraduate students) AND (self-care OR well-being OR mindfulness practices) AND (executive functioning disorders OR Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder OR ADHD OR Inattentive ADHD) |
Next steps could be to expand the search strategy key terms with even more...
| A more comphensive search strategy | (university students OR college students OR post-secondary students OR undergraduate students OR graduate students OR higher education students) AND ( care OR self-care OR well-being OR wellness OR mental health OR stress management OR mindfulness practices OR coping strategies OR emotional regulation OR lifestyle interventions) AND (executive functioning disorders OR Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder OR ADHD OR Inattentive ADHD OR Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD OR neurodiversity OR cognitive impairments OR executive dysfunction OR attention disorders) |
A vital part of the research process is identifying and choosing places where you will search for information. However, it is important to select the right places to search for your information needs.
Why? Well... let's work through this activity below and consider how sometimes some places are better than others to find the information we need.
Next, for each of your main concepts, choose several words or phrases that represent or describe it. These will be your search terms. It's important to come up with alternatives, since there are many ways to refer to a concept. If you only use one, you may miss relevant articles.
There are two different types of search terms you can use: subject headings and keywords. For a comprehensive search, always use both:
| Type of Search Term | Description | How Do You Choose Them? |
| Subject heading |
Searching using preassigned terms that represent topics or subjects for articles that have been "tagged" or labeled with that term. Each database uses its own subject headings. The ones used in Ovid MEDLINE and PubMed are called MeSH. The subject headings are organized in a hierarchical tree. |
|
| Keyword (also known as "textword") |
Searching the "record" of a database for the presence of specific words or phrases you choose yourself. The record does not include the full-text of the article. The search will usually check the title, abstract, and author-provided keywords, but you can specify the fields you want to search. |
|
| Concept | Subject Heading (MeSH) | Keywords |
| World Health Organization |
|
|
| Health Equity |
|
|
| Cities |
|
|
Tip: Sometimes, the subject heading and keywords for a concept will be the same. Other times they won't match. It depends on the subject headings used by the database.
Once you've chosen your search terms, you're ready to combine them to create your search strategy.
Terms are combined using Boolean operators. They are a set of commands that search engines, online catalogues, and databases are able to understand. They also make searching more efficient by letting you combine dozens of queries into one search.
Boolean operators include: AND, OR, NOT, parentheses, truncation, and phrases
Need more help? See our page on Boolean operators.
AND tells the search engine to only return results that contain all the words you've entered. Since the search is more specific and selective, you'll retrieve fewer results.
Example: equity AND cities
NOT tells the search engine to give you results that contain all of the words you entered except the word following NOT.
Example: smoking NOT cigars
OR tells the search engine to give your results that contain any of the terms you've entered. This creates a broader search, so you'll retrieve a greater number of results.
Example: equity OR equities OR inequity OR inequities
Truncation (usually represented by an asterisk *) allows you to search for multiple endings of the same root word.
Example: equit* = equity, equities, equitable
NOTE: if the stem before the asterisk is short, you may pick up unwanted or irrelevant variant endings. For example, cit* with pick up city and cities, but also citizen, citizenship, citrus, citation, and more. In these cases, it's better to type out the variants you're looking for and combine them with OR.
Search for two or more words as a unit by putting them in quotation marks. This is especially useful for titles or phrases.
Example: "World Health Organization"
NOTE: OVID databases like Medline, Embase, and PsycINFO automatically search for words you enter side by side (and that are not combined with a Boolean operator) as a phrase.
By using parentheses, you can ask a search engine to perform several Boolean searches at the same time. The search engine will perform the search enclosed in parentheses first, before moving on to the other search terms.
Example: ("World Health Organization" OR "W.H.O.") AND ("health equit*" OR "health inequit*" OR "health equalit*" OR "health inequalit*" OR "health disparities") AND (city OR cities OR municipalit* OR town OR towns)
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