Database Searching

No References or Too Few References

• Look for misspellings in your strategy.

• Decrease the number of concepts searched.

• Try a broader search term.

• Use a term from the thesaurus (i.e., MeSH or subject heading list) for searching.

• Use the Related Articles or Similar Articles feature.

• Check for missing or incorrect field qualifiers.

• Remove terms that are unlikely to be used by an author.

• Replace terms that are too general or too specific.

• Increase the number of synonyms or alternatives for a term.

• Use a truncation symbol at the end of a term to pick up variant endings.

• Try running the search on earlier years (back files) of the database.

• Try a different database.

Too Many References

• Choose the most specific subject headings or most significant key words.

• Use subheadings to narrow the focus of the subject heading if appropriate.

• Increase the number of search concepts that are ANDed together.

• Use fewer synonyms for terms.

• Make a term from the thesaurus (i.e. subject heading list or controlled vocabulary) the main focus of the article ("major" in PubMed and "focus" in CINAHL).

• Limit to review articles.

• Limit your search to type of article, language, age group, current years, etc.

• Ask for significant words to be in the TITLE of the article.

Our friendly reference librarians can help you with general information (such as locating full-text articles) or in-depth research questions (like how to use research databases). Stop by the Reference Desk for one-on-one help. You may also call, email, or chat us!

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