Comprehensive Literature Searching

1
Comprehensive Literature Searching

• Carol Stephenson
• Liaison Librarian, UW Library
• Health Studies Gerontology
• School of Optometry
• cjstephe_at_library.uwaterloo.ca
• Ext. 6912

2
Overview

• Understand how the research / publication process
  affects your searching process
• Search Strategies hints and tips
• Manage citations / Store citations
• Find it / Get it
• And more.
• Health Studies Subject Web page
• http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/
• Research guide handout
• PubMed FAQ handout

3
Flow of Scientific Information
4
At UW, where would you search ?

• For Secondary / Tertiary (books, encyclopedias)
• http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/q
  uickref.html
• TRELLIS
• Reference collection, Davis Library
• For Secondary ( review articles)
• http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/ab
  stracts.html
• For Primary (journal articles)
• http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/ab
  stracts.html
• track down bibliographies from reviews, books
• cited reference searching to find newer
  articles
• For Grey (conference proceedings, association
  information, statistics, government reports)
• lots of places - Google Scholar it PLUSsee
  handout

Traditional Review A review article, usually
written by an expert in the field, that
synthesizes the results and conclusions of 2 or
more publications on a specific topic.
Systematic Review A review article, usually
written by many individuals, with a clearly
formulated question that uses systematic and
explicit methods to identify, select and
critically appraise relevant research, and to
collect and analyze data from the studies that
are included in the review.
5
Why is searching PubMed not enough?5 Common
Literature Myths

• All research is published
• All research is published in English (and in the
  USA)
• All research is published in journals.
• All research published in journals is indexed in
  the major indexes.
• All research indexed in indexes can be readily
  retrieved.
• (Glanville, J. Literature Searching to Inform
  Systematic Reviews. Centre for Reviews and
  Dissemination. Oct. 2002. U of York. 31 May 2004
  ltwww.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/litsrch.pptgt.)

6
The searching process
7
Research Question and Concept Analysis

• How do we protect children from exposure to
  second hand tobacco smoke?

Children Child Youth Infants
Prevention Protection Control
Second hand smoke Secondhand smoke tobacco
smoking Involuntary smoking
8
Example search strategy
9
PubMed hints Use the tools

• http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
• Use controlled vocabulary (i.e. MeSH terms)
• Use the resources in the left-hand toolbar
  (special queries)
• Use the tab features (limit, history, clipboard)
• Change the display to get more information

10
Second hand smoke exampleWhere to search after
PubMed?

• http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/abst
  racts.html
• CSA or OVID indexes to search
• Web of Science to search or cite-search
• Grey literature sources
• Dissertations Theses database
• Google Scholar
• Statistics sources Web sites
• Known Researchers
• eg.Paul Mcdonald author search (Web of Science)