Lesson 4

• Literature search


  A considered and organized search to find key literature on a topic
• Literature search


  • It involves searching and compiling all the literature (books, journals, and more) available on a specific topic
  • One of the most important reasons to do a literature search is to have enough information to formulate a valid research question
• Fundamental searching strategies and skills

  • Planning
  • Reconnaissance
  • Browsing
  • Methodical searching
  • Citation chaining
  • Limiting searches
  • Monitoring
• Planning a search


  A conscious and considered process to get better results
• Identifying key terms


  Jotting down key terms, identifying synonyms and related terms
• Planning how terms will be combined and entered

  • Using Boolean logic
  • Using phrase searching and proximity operators
  • Using truncators and wildcards
  • Determining which fields are relevant to search
  • Limiting searches
• Boolean logic


  Useful when your search involves more than one search term and you need to be more specific about how the terms relate to each other. The three Boolean operators are AND, OR and NOT.
• Phrase searching and proximity operators

  Establish a connection between search terms, allowing you to be more specific about how and where the terms might combine
• Truncators or "wildcards"


  Allow you to use a special symbol (frequently *) in the place of a particular letter or letters to broaden or restrict your search results
• Determining which fields to search

  You can specify in which field you wish to search for a particular term, e.g. author, title, subject, keywords, or full text
• Limiting searches


  Many databases allow you to limit your searches by date, material type, language, or country of publication
• Keeping a record of your searches

  Enables you to evaluate which databases or search terms are most effective, repeat successful searches, and stay focused
• Purpose of literature review

  To critically evaluate, re-organize and synthesize the work of others to provide background and motivation for your own research
• Examples of commonly used literature databases by discipline


  • General databases
  • Discipline-specific databases
• Understanding and saving your search results

  Each database will vary in its display of records and provide different options for saving and/or exporting the results
• Searching library catalogues


  Similar to searching a database, allows you to locate items in other libraries
• Sources of e-books and other digital resources

  • Library-provided
  • Publisher-provided
  • Community groups and networks
• Periodical directories


  Useful to identify journals not indexed in commonly accessible databases, especially those from non-Western countries
• Other search tools available online

  • Theses and dissertations
  • Conference proceedings
  • Government publications
  • Company and industry information
  • Patents
  • Standards
• Reference librarian


  Your most valuable resource for literature searching
• As the majority of databases are biased toward literature from western countries, other internationally important journals may not be represented.
• A sample of the range of search tools available online

  • Your most valuable resource - the reference librarian
  • Monitoring literature
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar
  • Research Gate
  • IEEE
  • Elicit
  • IJCAonline
  • Research Rabbit
  • Connected Papers
  • LitMaps
  • Grammarly
  • PaperPal
  • Quillbot
  • Spinbot
  • Mendeley
  • Zotero
  • EndNote
• Installing Mendeley


  1. Click the link to install

  2. Look for Citation Plugin for Microsoft Windows and click Install Now

  3. Open MS Word, go to Reference Menu and see the Open Mendeley

  4. Add all your Journals or RIS file by drag and drop or Add button

  5. Adding the references from your text, click the Reference menu then click Citation

  6. Click the Goto Mendeley button

  7. Click the name of your journal, to add the link of reference, click at your toolbar

  8. To generate list of references, click Insert Bibliography
• Six simple steps for literature search

  1. Decide on your research question in your own words

  2. Define the terms and concepts

  3. Use Boolean operators

  4. Limit your search

  5. Select the right database

  6. Start Searching!
• Databases


  • ABI/Inform
  • AMED
  • ASSIA
  • CINAHL
  • Cochrane
  • Embase
  • HMIC
  • Medline