Steps of the Literature Search
- State your research topic or question. What is your central question or issue that the literature can help define? What is already known about the topic?
- Clarify the purpose of your review: to provide begin the process of developing a research topic, background information for a research paper, or is it a project itself like a publishable systematic or narrative review?
- Develop a starting search plan. Where will you find information? (Library databases? Google Scholar? Special digital or physical collections specific to your discipline?)
- What is the scope of the search? How broadly or narrowly should you search?
- Consider using a search log to help you search more effectively.
- Do your search and choose sources that seem to have information on your topic.
- Choose the exact information you want to use, discuss, or develop in your review.
- Organize and synthesize the information you've selected. You may want to invest the time to learn a citation manager.
- Before beginning to write about the sources, you will probably find it useful to organize the sources -- perhaps thematically, perhaps chronologically.
- Write a draft of the paper or article.
Developing a Search Query in PubMed
- Identify the core concepts (question framework)
- Find the relevant terms for the concepts (term harvesting)
- Enter concepts into the MeSH database and find relevant terms
- Do some quick title searches with your concept terms (add a [ti] after the term) look at the MeSH mapping of relevant articles.
- Add free text terms (non MeSH terms)
- Create columns of terms for each concept
- Build the search query by separating the synonyms by OR (with a set of parentheses around the group) and the concepts by AND.
Peer Mentoring in Medical School
Term Harvesting
TERMS in BLUE are MESH
The Search Query
("Peer Group"[Mesh] OR peer* OR buddy OR buddies OR classmate*) AND ("Mentors"[Mesh] OR mentor* OR mentee* OR counsel* OR coach* OR advise* OR tutor* OR "assisted learning") AND ("Students, Medical"[MeSH] OR "Schools, Medical"[MeSH] OR "Education, Medical, Undergraduate"[MeSH] OR "medical student*" OR "medical school*")
MeSH and Education
The following terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the controlled vocabulary of Medline, may be useful in formulating your search.
Subheadings:
The /Education (ed) subheading can be applied to a specific term to refine it to the educational aspects. It is used for education and training programs in various fields and disciplines, and for training groups of persons. Includes curriculum, and the concepts of the teacher teaching, the student learning, and the courses taught.
Ex. Gastroenterology/ed will retrieve articles on education in the field of gastroenterology.
Terms for Curriculum
Curriculum
Competency-based Education
Problem-based Learning
Terms for Faculty/Teachers
Faculty, Medical
Faculty, Nursing
Mentors
Preceptorship
Terms for Students
Students, Health Occupations
Students, Medical
Students Nursing
Terms for Education/Schools
Allied Health Occupations/ED
Allied Health Personnel/ED
Education, Distance
Education, Professional
Education, Graduate
Education, Medical, Graduate
Internship and Residency
Education, Nursing, Graduate
Education, Medical
Education, Medical, Graduate
Education, Medical, Undergraduate
Clinical Clerkship
Education, Nursing
Education, Nursing, Associate
Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate
Education, Nursing, Diploma Programs
Education, Nursing, Graduate
Nursing Education Research
Schools, Health Occupations
Schools, Medical
Schools, Nursing
Terms for Teaching/Learning
Teaching
Computer User Training
Educational Technology
Models, Educational
Patient Simulation
Problem-based Learning
Competency-Based Education
Programmed Instruction
Computer-Assisted Instruction
Remedial Teaching
Teaching Materials
Audiovisual Aids
Textbooks
Terms for Assessment
Educational Measurement
Professional Competence
Clinical Competence
Self-Evaluation Programs