Systematic Reviews: Searching for literature

You should start with a scoping search to work out if there is enough literature out there to answer your review question.

A scoping search is just an initial search and does not usually require a detailed search strategy. 

You may choose to do your scoping search on subject specific databases, Locate or Google Scholar. However, please note that your full systematic search should focus on databases. 

After your scoping search, you might decide it's necessary to refine your question (e.g. if there is too much or too little literature available on the topic). Please discuss this with your supervisor as your librarian will not be able to advise on refining your question. 

See also: ▶️ Performing a scoping search only on databases

Saving your search strategy (i.e. the keywords and filters you have used) will be needed for your methods section. Keeping a record of your strategy also means you can rerun the search. Most databases will allow you to save the strategy as well as the list of results. See the videos below for demonstrations on how to do this on various databases.

• ▶️ COCHRANE 
• ▶️ EBSCO (relevant to CINAHL, MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, AMED, Academic Search Complete, SPORTDiscus etc.)
• ▶️ PEDro (physiotherapy) 
• ▶️ PubMed 
• ▶️ Science Direct 
• ▶️ Scopus 

Grey literature is a term to describe information which is produced outside of traditional publishing and is often not indexed on databases. This type of literature can take many different formats such as conference proceedings and policy documents. Visit the grey literature page for more information. 

Once you have done a scoping search, you should have established if there is enough relevant literature to complete your review. Now it is time to conduct a systematic search using advanced search techniques.

Your systematic search must be completed on databases and you can find a list of relevant databases on your subject guide. Search engines such as Locate or Google Scholar may be used to find supplementary material, however the majority of your results should come from databases.

In the methods section of your systematic review, you will need to describe how you undertook your search. For example you should describe which databases you used, what key words (and in some cases subject headings) you used, and what filters you applied. Depending on your course, you might be asked to demonstrate this in the form of a search strategy table. Please check your assignment brief, or with your supervisor if you are not sure. For these reasons, it is important that you keep a record of your search strategy as you are developing it. 

Use this basic and advanced searching guide to develop your search strategy. Below are videos on doing an advanced search on a few of the most popular health and life science databases. 

• ▶️ COCHRANE 
• ▶️ EBSCO (please note, this is a demo of the CINAHL database but most of these techniques can also be applied to MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, AMED, Academic Search Complete, SPORTDiscus etc.) 
• ▶️ PEDro (physiotherapy)
• ▶️ PubMed (see also using MeSH terms on PubMed)
• ▶️ Science Direct 
• ▶️ Scopus

It is a good idea to move your results from the databases and put them into reference management software. This will help you to keep them all together. It will also help you with the next stage (screening your results). 

Your librarians can support with two reference management software systems, Zotero and EndNote. To find out more about using these, visit our reference management software page. The videos below will show you how to put your results into Zotero and EndNote. 

Zotero (desktop version)

• ▶️ Exporting results to Zotero (for video chapter links for each database, see below)
  • COCHRANE
  • EBSCO (relevant to CINAHL, MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, AMED, Academic Search Complete, SPORTDiscus etc.)
  • PEDro (physiotherapy) 
  • PubMed
  • ScienceDirect
  • Scopus

EndNote 21

• ▶️ Exporting results to EndNote 21 (for video chapter links for each database, see below)
  • COCHRANE
  • EBSCO (relevant to CINAHL, MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, AMED, Academic Search Complete, SPORTDiscus etc.)
  • PEDro (physiotherapy) 
  • PubMed
  • ScienceDirect
  • Scopus

EndNote X9

• ▶️ Exporting results to EndNote X9 (for video chapter links for each database, see below)
  • COCHRANE
  • EBSCO (relevant to CINAHL, MEDLINE, APA PsycInfo, AMED, Academic Search Complete, SPORTDiscus etc.)
  • PEDro (physiotherapy) 
  • PubMed
  • ScienceDirect
  • Scopus

Some of the articles will be duplicated across the databases. Watch the demonstrations below to learn how to remove duplicates before the screening process. 

• ▶️ Zotero (desktop version)
• ▶️ EndNote 21
• ▶️ EndNote X9 - If you have already downloaded X9, you may continue to use this
• ▶️ EBSCO (duplicates can only be removed on EBSCO for articles found on EBSCO databases)