Save time & aggravation by answering the following questions before you start your literature review.
1. What's my topic or question?
Example: What is the impact of sugared drinks on the gut microbiome?
2. What are my main concepts?
Example:
3. What are other terms or synonyms for my topics?
Example:
4. What types of sources or materials can I use?
Example: journal articles, books, evidence-based guidelines
5. How do I put it all together?
Example Search Strategy:
(Sugared drinks OR soft drinks OR soda OR cola Or juice) AND (gut microbiome OR gut microbiota OR gastrointestinal microbiome) AND (guideline OR random*)
Now that you know your topic and search terms, it’s time to choose the databases you’ll use. Here are some suggestions, for more see the Home tab of this guide:
Read below & on the next column for tips on how to find articles using the terms you listed in questions 2 & 3 above.
If you have questions, ask us at http://libraryguides.missouri.edu/contact
Think of subject searching like tagging your social media posts. Many databases use tags, know as subject headings or descriptors, to categorize articles.
These standardized terms help you find more resources on the same topic. When you see subject heading sin a catalog or database record, you can use them to discover similar books or articles. It's like clicking on "find more like this" or "find similar" links on your favorite websites.
Truncation: Use an asterisk (*) find all words that start with the same letters. This helps you capture different word forms.
Example: microbio* will find microbiome, microbiomes, microbiota
Example: child* will find child, childhood, childlike, children
Wildcard: substitute letters within a word using a symbol (often an asterisk or a question mark) to find variations.
Example: wom*n will find woman, women
Example: colo*r find color, colour
Exact Phrase: use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase.
Example: "high fructose corn syrup"
Field Searching: target your search to specific parts of the database record like the title, abstract, or author. Most databases have dropdown menus to help you select the field you want to search in.
To get the best results from most databases, break your topic into smaller parts and combine the concepts using AND or OR. This technique is know as Boolean logic, named after the mathematician George Boole.
AND: narrows your search by combining terms. You'll get results that include all the specified terms.
Example: Gut microbiome AND Sugared drinks
OR: broadens your search by including any of the specified terms. This is useful for finding synonyms or related concepts.
Example: sugared drinks OR sweetened beverages OR soft drink*
Most databases have dropdown menus where you can select AND or OR to combine your search terms.
You can also use these operators together by grouping terms with parenthesis:
(gut microbiome OR gut microbiota OR gastrointestinal microbiome) AND (sugared drinks OR sweetened beverage* OR soft drink* OR juice OR sports drinks)
Visualizing Boolean Logic using Venn Diagrams
OR: retrieves all information from both circles
AND: retrieves only the information where the circles overlap
