How do I know whether my search is bad, or if there's no evidence on my topic?

Answer

There is no real way to know this – but there are things you can do to make sure your search is as sound as it could be:

  1. Have you clearly identified all the important concepts to search for?
  2. Have you used appropriate and relevant subject headings?
  3. Have you identified all the keywords/synonyms that can be used to describe your concept, including alternate spellings?
    1. Example: elderly can also be expressed by the words aged, ageing, aging, elder, elders, senior, seniors
    2. Look at Entry Terms, Used for Terms, Related Terms within the scope note of a MeSH subject heading, or search in a thesaurus
  4. Have you truncated words where appropriate?
    1. Surg* will yield results for surgery, surgical, surgeon, etc.
  5. Have you used wildcards?
    1. Example: wom#n will give you results for woman or women
  6. Are you combining synonyms using OR and combining different concepts using AND?
  7. Are you using the right search fields?
    1. Remember that search fields and their codes are not the same across databases.

You also might want to run your search by a librarian to make sure you aren't missing anything important. If you are certain that your search is not the problem and you're still not finding what you're looking for, there may just not be evidence on your particular topic.

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  • Last updated Dec 04, 2023
  • Views 20
  • Answered by Eleni Philippopoulos

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