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ECON 307: Advanced Topics in Health Economics

Workshop Slides

Search Strategies

You will likely go through the search process a number of times, performing different searches with different keyword combinations, to address the different components of your topic.

Systematic Searching Handsearching
#1 Identify your question. Identify the key concepts and related terms. Tip:  You may want to re-phrase your question. Background reading can help you identify related terms and further define or narrow your topic.  Explore reference lists to locate other articles, books, or authors who have written on the same topic. 
#2 Find an appropriate search tool. Consider your subject matter, discipline of study, type of information needed (e.g. peer reviewed articles) Locate cited research in reference lists/bibliographies and citing literature (WoS or Google Scholar) to view past and more recent similar or adjacent research.

#3 Start with a simple search based on your key concepts. Tip: You may also have to look at literature that refers to one (not all) aspects of your research question.

 Browse the table of contents of relevant journals and special issues.

#4 Use specific search strategies.

  • Use AND to join dissimilar terms.
  • Use OR to join synonyms or related terms.
  • Truncate words with * to pick up variations of that word. 
  • Use "quotation marks" for phrase searching. 
  • Use database limiters e.g. limit to scholarly journals. 
  • Consider searching in a specific field e.g. title (article title) or source (journal title.)
 Review bibliographies or reading lists to locate recommended or key resources.
#5 Search and skim results. Look for the language and terms that researchers use and that the database assigns to articles (Subjects). Locate an expert Locate an expert the the field and browse their publications.  
#6 Switch up your searches.  Use promising new terminology.  Your search may become more sophisticated.  

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT, are used to combine your keywords. 

AND is used to connect different concepts: food production AND "social justice"

Using AND will narrow your search, because the database is searching for sources that contain all the keywords.

 

OR is used to connect similar concepts: food production OR farming OR agriculture

Using OR to connect similar words will broaden your search, because the database is searching for sources that contain at least one of the keywords.

 

NOT will remove any search results that contain a particular keyword: food production NOT "landscaping" 

Using NOT will decrease the number of search results, or narrow our search, because the database will exclude resources with the specified keyword(s) from the results list. 

Phrase Searching

Enclose your keywords in quotation marks to search for an exact phrase: :"food justice" OR "food sovereignty"

quotation marks

 

Truncation

Truncation allows you to account for words with variations.

asterisk

The asterisk(*) is commonly used to truncate a keyword. Place the * where you would like to account for variation: 

         activis* will retrieve: activism, activist, activists

 

Many research databases and search tools use AI to provide an improved search experience. Over the past few years a number of new tools claim to make your literature search more efficient; below are two free, time-tested AI driven tools that enable research discovery that can be used to supplement (but not replace) your database and journal research.

Consult with your professor about AI research tools and your course specific AI policy.