What Is Systematic Searching?

Searching for systematic reviews is a little different than your average database search. Because the process for developing systematic reviews is supposed to be as transparent and methodological as possible, careful attention must be given to your search strategy. We strongly recommend you review the tools for systematic searching before you really begin! An overview of the information in those resources is listed below. 

Let's Get Started

A well thought out and thorough systematic search assumes: 

• You have developed a clear and focused question
• You have thought about what kind of research articles would appropriately answer your question
• You have identified key concepts that address the different elements of your research question
  • You have chosen specific elements of your question to yield the most relevant results
• You have completed a preliminary search to identify existing reviews (2-4 to be used as example, 'gold standard' articles) 

Note: Identifying key concepts and elements of your research question is necessary so that bias is not introduced in your search and your list of results is not blurred by overlapping elements. 

Choose Your Database

How do you decide which database is best to answer your research question? Lewis Library offers access to over 150 databases via our A-Z  Database List, which can be filtered by subject or searched by keyword. When making this decision:

• Consider reaching out to your librarian - we are database experts and can make relevant recommendations 
• You should choose at least two (ideally more) databases to conduct an exhaustive search
• Be intentional in database choices - work smarter, not harder 
• Understand (even if limited) how results are populated 
  • Some databases do not disclose their algorithms, making it hard for researchers to recreate search strategies and prevents reproducible, transparent search strings
• You have identified potential databases that index the material you are looking for
  • If you are looking for anything other than research articles (like clinical trials, chemical abstracts, dissertations, etc.) then you should visit the About section of database websites to understand the content that you will find from a search

Putting Together a Search Strategy

First: Identify Key Terms

The foundation of your systematic search will be 'term harvesting', which involves finding all relevant terms that can be applied to the research question including both natural language terms and controlled vocabulary. Most databases have a thesaurus available to browse that lists all terms used in the database to categorize materials according to subject. 

Second: Use Advanced Search Techniques

Some searches do not require advanced knowledge of database syntax, but systematic searches do. To fully use a database to your advantage, consider using: 

• Boolean logic: the operators AND, OR, and NOT (capitalization matters) can be used to expand or reduce search results
• Truncation and Wildcards: usually denoted with an asterisk (*), truncation and wildcards allow researchers to search root words with various beginnings, middles, and endings
  • Truncation example: stud* will return results that include studying, studies, students, etc.
  • Wildcard example: wom*n will return results that include woman and women
• Proximity operators: this logic syntax is used to narrow results by identifying words next to, near, or within a certain distance from each other; operators vary by database, so search for the Help page to find out how to use this operator
  • Example: In PubMed, "hip pain"[Title:~4] will return results where "hip" and "pain" will be positioned within 4 words of each other

Third: Document Your Searches

You should keep notes about which decisions have been made, why they were made, and document processes so that searches can be replicated by anyone months or years later. The Canadian Agency of Drugs and Technologies in Health created an evidence-based tool to review search strategies, called Peer Review of Electronic Search Stategies (PRESS). This framework aids researchers in identifying potential errors found in search strategies and ensures standardization across database searches.

Translating Your Searches

As you move from database to database, your searches should operate as similarly as possible to each other. This is complicated because different databases offer different controlled vocabulary and search techniques vary greatly. Documenting your strategies will help the translation process and help your overall search strategy maintain integrity throughout this process.