Good search practice could involve keeping a search diary or document detailing your search activities (Phelps et. al. 2007, pp. 128-149), so that you can keep track of effective search terms, or to help others to reproduce your steps and get the same results.
This record could be a document, table or spreadsheet with:
| Tip: you will be doing a number of searches as your initial search evolves. As your thesis, discussions and argument develops you will search for further evidence and support from the literature. Each search should be included in your search record. |
A search planner may help you to organise you thoughts prior to conducting your search. If you have any problems with organising your thoughts prior, during and after searching please contact your Library Faculty Team for individual help.
This diagram illustrates the literature search cycle. It shows a circle in quarters. Top left quarter is identify main concepts with rectangle describing how to do this by identifying:controlled vocabulary terms, synonyms, keywords and spelling. Top right quarter select library resources to search and rectangle describing resources to search library catalogue relevant journal articles and other resource. Bottom right corner of circle search resources and in rectangle consider using boolean searching proximity searching and truncated searching techniques. Bottom left quarter of circle review and refine results. In rectangle evaluate results, rethink keywords and create alerts.
Search frameworks are mnemonics which can help you focus your research question. They are also useful in helping you to identify the concepts and terms you will use in your literature search.
PICO is a search framework commonly used in the health sciences to focus clinical questions. As an example, you work in an aged care facility and are interested in whether cranberry juice might help reduce the common occurrence of urinary tract infections. The PICO framework would look like this:
|
Population/Patient/Problem |
People living in aged care facilities |
|
Intervention |
Cranberry juice |
|
Comparison |
No cranberry juice (status quo) |
|
Outcome |
Prevention of UTIs |
Now that the issue has been broken up to its elements, it is easier to turn it into an answerable research question: “Does cranberry juice help reduce urinary tract infections in people living in aged care facilities?”
Other frameworks may be helpful, depending on your question and your field of interest. PICO can be adapted to PICOT (which adds Time) or PICOS (which adds Study design), or PICOC (adding Context).
For qualitative questions you could use
For questions about causes or risk,
For evaluations of interventions or policies,
See the University of Notre Dame Australia’s examples of some of these frameworks.
You can also try some PICO examples in the National Library of Medicine's PubMed training site: Using PICO to frame clinical questions.
|
TIP: If you use all the elements of your search framework to combine terms, you may find you have narrowed the search too much and will struggle to find relevant studies. Try using only the most critical elements from the mnemonic for concepts to search. For example, in a PICO search, you would sometimes exclude the O (outcome) terms in your search strategy as the outcomes may come from combining the other terms. If the C (comparison) is the status quo, you wouldn't use those terms either. Try to avoid concepts that have vague or broad meanings, such as benefits or health effects. Ask your Faculty Librarian for help and advice! |
Your Faculty Librarian
Your HDR supervisor
If you need support with storage or research tools contact the DIT Service Desk
Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review by Charles Sturt University acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which its campuses are located, paying respect to Elders, both past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations Peoples.
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