Life and Health Sciences Research Support: Information Skills

Check the current state of research in your choosen area. Is anyone carrying out similar reviews, what about the latest theses?

We have a separate Library Guide for Systematic Reviews - search this for more information and resources on how to find EBP and carry out a systematic review.

Cochrane Interactive Learning - this course provides over 15 hours of self-directed learning on conducting a complete systematic review process for both new and experienced review authors.

Medical databases such as Ovid Medline, CINAHL Ultimate, AMED, EMBASE and PsycINFO use a form of subject indexing or controlled vocabulary to help us retrieve material.

A introductory video guide to MeSH searching can be found here.

Where you search and the techniques you use may differ depending on your topic, contact your Subject Librarian for more advice.

Main Information sources

1. Books
2. Databases
3. Key Journals
4. Reference, citation and author searching
5. Grey Literature e.g. Theses, Conferences Proceedings, search engines, websites
6. Government and professional publications, reports and policies
7. Data Sets, standards and patents

In order to carry out a systematic and comprehensive search of the literature you will need to plan out what you are going to do. This is called a Search Strategy.

• Decide on your topic, focus your question before you begin to search.
• Identify key terms; think of synonyms, scientific, medical and health terminology, be creative think laterally.
• Apply limits; what inclusion/exclusion criteria are you going to apply e.g. gender, date, year, geographic location, study type?
• Record your search strategy; which resources you searched, what key terms you used and save any relevant results. Most databases will give you the option to create a personal account to save your search and results or alternatively make your own copy. Remember you may be asked to reproduce your search and the strategy at a later date.
• Save and organise any results you find; back up any files and documents, write down the details of any useful references or use an online bibliographic management system such as RefWorks.