Developing Literature Searching and Evaluation Skills for ERM Module (HWLS): Developing Search Skills

When you begin to think about searching for your literature, there are some first steps you need to take. It's always a good idea to have a plan for what you are going to do. Map out your key words/phrases, think about your alternative terms and any other criteria you may need to include, such as a date filter for example. This video explains starting the process of searching by identifying your key words and phrases.

Creating a Search Strategy - First Steps

You can also use a visual approach to creating your search strategy! This graphic may help you to think about your key terms and alternatives:

Once you have grasped the basics above, you need to think about becoming more systematic and comprehensive in your searching of the resources. You'll find that you now need to begin refining your research to suit your own needs, and there are some useful tools within the databases to help you do this.

This video demonstrates how to apply your search strategy to a specific database (Medline) and then refine your search using the filters within the database:

• Searching Comprehensively and Effectively in a Health Database 

Remember! You can use these techniques in any of the specialist databases you need to use, and that these techniques are also transferable into any professional resources you need to use, too.

Using your own key terms, words and phrases is a good start to comprehensive literature searching, but databases are also programmed with their own preferred terms. These appear in the database thesaurus, and it is a good idea to check your keywords and phrases against the database headings. This short video shows you how to do this:

• Using CINAHL Headings

Another useful technique to use is Incremental and Citation Searching. More commonly known as 'Pearl Growing' or 'Snowballing' because you are using one piece of research as a building block to find other research related to, or attached to, that piece. It can be particularly useful if you are struggling to find research on your topic. This video shows you how to apply this technique using one of the multi-disciplinary databases, Scopus:

• Quick Wins: Growing Your Research Using Pearl Growing/Snowballing

This technique can also be used in Google Scholar (https://library.shu.ac.uk/googlescholar.html). Google Scholar is a final resort to ensure you have collected all the relevant literature for your topic!

Subject Librarian Support

To help you to unpick your research topic and formulate a working search strategy, you can use a framework - or structure, if you like - to help you do this. In the research fields of Health and Social Care there are a number of frameworks that can help you depending on the type of research question you have and the type of research you are looking for. The most well-known and useful of these are the PEO and PICO frameworks, but there are lots more.

In the boxes opposite on this page are explanations of the three most appropriate frameworks you can use. Please choose one of these to use, to help you to frame your search strategy.

Chapter 2 of this book gives more detail on how to use frameworks for your search strategy:

PEO is the simplest of the frameworks to use. It stands for Population, Exposure and Outcome and can be used to find a range of primary literature. Watch this short video on using the PEO framework to develop your search strategy:

Identifying Keywords and using PEO

More information about PEO and PICO can also be found in this article: Clinical Questions: PICO and PEO Research

Depending on your topic, you may need to use different strategies to PEO. PICO is for finding articles when you have an intervention - after all, that is what the 'I' in the PICO acronym stands for!

How to use a PICO search - Cochrane PICO search strategy. Explanation of how to construct your PICO search strategy.

Creating a PICO scenario - Interactive tutorial created by the University of York guiding you through how to use PICO.

Searching for proof: Creating and using an actionable PICO question - Article on how to use the PICO strategy to identify key research. (This link takes you to Library Search. Click on the link under 'Find Online' to access the article.)

How to get started with a PICO search - This is a Cochrane Library flipbook on searching with your PICO strategy.

SPIDER stands for: Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type. SPIDER is used when you want to find qualitative or mixed-method research articles. Here's more information on using SPIDER as a framework:

SPIDER Search Strategy 

There are lots of books on your reading list that talk about how to use frameworks to develop your search strategy. You should refer to these to look for your framework of choice.

Your reading list is to be found on the homepage of your Evaluating Research Methodologies module site.