Literature Search Strategies
Six rules govern whether a search returns the work that already answers your question or a wall of noise. None of them is difficult. All of them are routinely skipped.
Why search technique decides the quality of your review
A literature review is only as good as the literature that reaches it. If your search misses the three papers that already engage with your question, your review will confidently claim a gap that does not exist — and an examiner who knows the field will find those three papers in a minute.
The supplied teaching source is blunt about the payoff: "By adopting effective research strategies you can save yourself a lot of time and obtain better quality articles." Both halves matter. Better technique is faster and returns better material, which is unusual — most efficiencies cost quality.
The five database types the source names
The supplied material names five kinds of search target. It describes what they are only by name, so treat the descriptions below as a working orientation rather than as the source's own definitions.
SEARCH TARGETS NAMED IN THE SUPPLIED SOURCE
| Named in the source | What it is | When it is the right first stop |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogue | Named only | Books and physical holdings — where you go when you need a monograph or a classic text rather than a paper |
| Summon | Named only | A single-search discovery layer across many databases at once — broad, fast, and noisy |
| Research Archive | Named only | An institution's own research outputs — theses, conference papers and case studies produced in-house |
| Trove | Named as a national database | National-scale aggregation including newspapers, archives and digitised material |
| A dissertation and theses database | Named only | Doctoral and masters theses specifically — the fastest route to a full worked research design in your field |
The source names these five and instructs you to "select the most relevant data base using your concepts/keywords". It gives no selection criteria beyond that.
The six search rules
As stated in the supplied source
Type in lower case
"Most search engines ignore capitals or may only pick up the Capitalised word." Capitalising is at best neutral and at worst silently narrows your result set.
Generate synonyms before you search
"Think of similar words of phrases that may help to access the information. Use a thesaurus to help." This is the rule with the largest effect on recall, and the one most often skipped.
Put the most important word first
Word order affects relevance ranking in many engines. Lead with the concept you cannot compromise on.
Bind phrases with quotation marks
"Combine words or phrases with 'quote marks'." Without them, a two-word concept is treated as two unrelated words that may appear pages apart.
Truncate with a wildcard
The source's own examples:
globali*ationpicks up both the American and the English spelling;cook*returns cook, cooks, cooking and cookery. One character replaces a list.Use advanced filters and categories
"Use advance searches and categories of searches e.g. 'no' books, 'no' newspaper articles, 'yes' to research paper etc." Filtering by publication type is the fastest way to cut a large result set without losing the material you actually want.
Building a synonym set before you search
Rule two carries more weight than the other five combined, because it is the only one that increases what you find rather than tidying what you already have. The source tells you to use a thesaurus and stops there. The expansion below is a synthesis for this page, not the source's.
Four places synonyms come from
- A thesaurus, as the source says — but a general thesaurus will miss field-specific usage
- The keyword lists attached to papers you have already found useful
- The subject headings a database assigns to a relevant record
- The terminology of adjacent disciplines — the same phenomenon is often studied elsewhere under another name
Four kinds of variation to cover
- Spelling variants — one wildcard covers both, exactly as the source's own
globali*ationexample does - Grammatical forms — manage, manages, managing, management, manager (one truncation covers all)
- Register — practitioner language against academic language for the same idea
- Era — a concept renamed a decade ago will hide older literature under its old label
Operators the source names but never explains
The database technique material instructs you to "check your use of OR & AND" when a search returns too many results. That is the only appearance of Boolean logic anywhere in the supplied material — the two operators are named, the instruction assumes you already know what they do, and no definition, example or truth table is given.
Recording the search so it can be defended
The supplied source treats searching as a private activity — nothing in it asks you to record what you searched for. That is a real omission at thesis level, where an examiner may reasonably ask how you know your review is comprehensive.
What to capture as you search — a synthesis, not the source's instruction
- The database or discovery layer used, and the date you searched it
- The exact search string, including quotation marks and truncation characters
- Any filters applied — date range, publication type, peer-reviewed only, language
- The number of results returned, and the number you marked as relevant
- Synonyms tried that returned nothing, so you do not repeat them in three weeks
- The point at which new searches stopped surfacing anything you had not already seen
Where this sits in the wider process
Search technique is the first half of the first of the two processes the source identifies. The nine-step routine for running and refining an individual database search is set out in Database search technique. What to do with the results once they arrive — the credibility tests — is in Assessing the academic value of sources, and the reading routine that follows is in Evaluating an article before you cite it.
- Concepts
- Keywords and synonyms
- Choose database
- Search
- Evaluate results
- Save and locate full text
What to carry forward
- Lower case, synonyms, most important word first, quotation marks, truncation, filters — six rules, and the second one does most of the work.
- Build the synonym set before the first search, from thesauri, keyword lists, subject headings and adjacent disciplines.
- A thin result set almost never means an empty field. It usually means you searched for your exact topic instead of related work.
- The source names AND and OR without defining them. If you need Boolean logic explained, that is a second source.
- Record the search string, filters, date and result count. Search until nothing new comes back, and keep the record that shows it.
Frequently asked questions
Which database should I start with?
The supplied source names five types and tells you to select the most relevant using your concepts and keywords, but gives no ranking. If you are writing a thesis, a thesis and dissertation database is a high-yield first stop because it shows you complete worked research designs at the length you are being asked to produce.
Does capitalisation really matter?
The source says most search engines ignore capitals or may only pick up the capitalised word. The risk is asymmetric — lower case costs you nothing and may avoid silently narrowing your results, so there is no reason to capitalise.
What does a wildcard actually do?
It stands in for one or more characters so a single search term covers a family of words. The source's own examples are globali*ation, which catches both the American and English spellings, and cook*, which returns cook, cooks, cooking and cookery.
How do I use AND and OR?
The supplied source names both operators as things to check when a search returns too many results, but never defines them. That is a genuine gap in the material and this page does not fill it with invented instruction — you will need a second source for Boolean logic.
How do I know when I have searched enough?
No supplied source gives a threshold. The most defensible practical signal is that new search strings stop surfacing material you have not already seen. Record your searches so you can show that point was reached.
References and source attribution
- Supplied teaching source, Week 4: Reviewing the Literature — study notes, slide deck and printed notes.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Trochim, W. M. K. 2006, Research Methods Knowledge Base.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Build me a synonym set for a research topic on risk management in R&D projects.
- What is the difference between a discovery layer and a subject database?
- How should I record my literature searches so an examiner can audit them?
- Why does my search return thousands of results, and how do I cut it down without losing relevant work?
- What publication-type filters should I apply when I only want peer-reviewed research?