literature search truncation

Search the Literature: Tips and Tricks

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What is truncation?

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• Limits (Filters)
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Truncation is the act or process of shortening or reducing something. In the context of literature searching, it refers to the shortening of a search term so as to bring up words that share a root word but have different endings. Truncation is a technique frequently used in keyword searching, in which it helps reduce the number of variations you have to search on separately.

For example:

In most databases, the truncation symbol is the asterisk (*), though it may be any character designated by the database. Check the database's Help pages for details.

A related technique is the use of wildcards , in which a character (often the asterisk) may be substituted for zero or more letters within the interior of a word. It is useful in the case of alternative spellings, e.g., tumo*r, to bring up both tumor and tumour. Again, check the database's Help pages for details.

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Search Tips: Truncation and Boolean Searching: Home

Truncation: what is it.

Truncation is also known as wildcard searching.  It lets you search for a term and variant spellings of that term. 

To truncate a search term, do a  keyword  search in a database, but remove the ending of the word and add an asterisk (*) to the end of the word. The database will retrieve results that include every word that begins with the letters you entered. 

BOOLEAN SEARCHING

For more precise searching, connect your keywords in a meaningful way using the words  AND ,  OR , and  NOT .

Think of these connecting words as a bridge between keywords or concepts which allows you  to  narrow  or  broaden   your search. 

The more keywords you connect with AND, the fewer results you will retrieve. The database will need to find each of your keywords in the text in order to show it to you.

For example:  "homeless youth" and education and "new york city"

Be careful not to add unnecessary words to  AND  searches. You might miss pertinent information. Sometimes the simpler the search, the better.

Here we are less picky with what terms we want to retrieve. Using OR is also helpful when we are searching for a concept that is described equally well by more than one term.

For example:  cars OR automobiles

                       environment AND (water OR lake* OR river* OR stream*)

Here the first search is asking for all information pertaining to cars or automobiles.

The second search is a little more detailed, but more precise.

This type of search is good to use when you already know what you DO NOT want. Let's say you are doing a search on new cars but you are only interested in American made models.

For example:  (cars OR automobiles) NOT Europe.

GOOD, BETTER, BEST

Good: 

• nurse AND education
• advertising AND children
• genetic engineering AND ethics
• nurs* AND education
• advertis* AND child*
• gene* engineering AND ethic*
• nurs* AND (educat* OR train* OR school*)
• (advertis* OR market*) AND (child* OR adoles*)
• gene* AND (alter* OR engineer*) AND (ethic* OR moral*)
• Last Updated: May 20, 2022 10:42 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wellesley.edu/truncation

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Database search tips: truncation.

• Boolean operators
• Keywords vs. subjects

What to look for

• Root words that have multiple endings.  Example: sun = suns, sunshine, sunny, sunlight
• Words that are spelled differently, but mean the same thing.  Example:  color, colour
• Truncation/wildcard symbols vary by database.  Check the help screens to find out which symbols are used.

About truncation and wildcards

Truncation :

Truncation, also called stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include various word endings and spellings.

• To use truncation, enter the root of a word and put the truncation symbol at the end.
• The database will return results that include any ending of that root word.
• Examples: child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood genetic* = genetic, genetics, genetically
• Truncation symbols may vary by database; common symbols include: *, !, ?, or #

Similar to truncation, wildcards substitute a symbol for one letter of a word.

• This is useful if a word is spelled in different ways, but still has the same meaning.
• Examples: wom!n = woman, women colo?r = color, colour

If you have questions about applying this technique to your search, Ask Us!

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• Research Skills Blog

How truncation, wildcards, stemming and lemmatization help your literature search

By Carol Hollier on 20-Dec-2021 09:30:00

Any good search is built on the “right” search terms—terms that retrieve literature relevant to the question under investigation.

But the English language is tricky. Many variations of a word can capture a single concept. If a researcher writes one version in their article title or abstract and you search with another, you can miss relevant—and important—articles. On the other hand, in some databases you may type one word in the search box, but get results with different, albeit related, words.

What accounts for these results? What is the best way to navigate search interfaces to get the results you need?

Four processes—truncation, wildcards, stemming and lemmatization—can expand what you type to capture more versions of that term. Truncation and wildcards are simple modifications you incorporate into a term you type. Stemming and lemmatization are algorithmic adjustments built into a database platform. Knowing how they work, and how you work them, gives you an easy way improve your literature searches.

Ways you can make your search more comprehensive

The main way a researcher can optimize their search is with truncation. Wildcards are helpful, too. In each of these methods, you type some of your search term’s letters and combine those letters with symbols that stand in for the possibility of letters you are not actually typing.

What is truncation?

To truncate a search term, you type the starting letters, or stem, of a word followed by a designated symbol, such as *, $, or !.

When the truncation symbol is added to a stem, the database brings back any results that match the letters you typed plus any results that have more letters following on from what you typed. For example, results for toxin* could include toxin, toxins, toxinogenesis, toxinogenic, toxinotype, toxinotypes, toxinotyping, toxinfective, toxinaemia, and toxinometer.

Truncating a search term is a powerful way to expand a search.

How do you know which symbol to use for truncation?

The truncation symbol is often an asterisk (*). Some databases use a dollar sign ($) instead, and at least a couple of databases use an exclamation point (!). Instructions on how to truncate terms can be found in every database’s help section.

The truncation symbol will always follow the letters you have typed with no space between letters and symbol.

Which databases let you truncate search terms?

Truncation is a universal database search technique. If it doesn’t seem to be working for you, check that you are using the correct truncation symbol for that database.

How do you know where to truncate a term?

If you are not sure how many letters you should be typing to capture your term and its variations without getting too many irrelevant results, experiment with truncating your term at different points. It’s usually worth trying a shorter stem than you think you need in case you are surprised by the relevant results you see. If you are flooded by irrelevant results, make your stem a little longer.

Some databases limit how short a truncated stem can be. PubMed, for instance, requires four typed letters before you can truncate a term.

Can you limit how many letters can follow your truncated stem?

Sometimes. On the Ovid platform, typing adult$1 returns results with adult and adults, but not adultery or adulteration. Typing adult$3 returns results with adult, adults, and adultery, but still not adulteration. Most platforms, however, do not offer this option.

A database’s help pages detail its truncation symbols’ exact functionality.

Can you truncate the beginning of a word?

Some database platforms do let you truncate both ends of a word. In these databases, typing *toxin* would return toxin, toxins, aflatoxin, aflatoxins, ochratoxin, ochratoxins, and many more results containing the string toxin somewhere in them.

Wildcards are symbols inserted into the middle of words.[1] They allow you to span spelling variations. Some databases use different symbols for what they term mandatory and optional wildcards. Mandatory means a letter, any letter, must stand in for the symbol; optional means that any letter might stand in for the symbol, but no letter might, too. For instance on the Ovid platform, you capture both the British and American spellings of organisation/organization by typing organi#ation, but favourite/favorite are captured with favo?rite.

Ways a database platform might be making your search more comprehensive

Some database platforms aim to make our searching lives easier by building in some automated extensions of search terms. They may search for both US and UK spellings of words regardless of which you type. They may also employ algorithms for stemming and lemmatization to broaden your searches.

Stemming is an automatic process in which the database searches for the word you type, the stem of that word, plus that stem with other possible endings. So, if you search asked , stemming would be the reason why you see results not just with asked, but also with ask, asks, and asking in them.

Lemmatization cleverly identifies the lemma, or lexical root, of a typed word, and goes out to find results with the different word versions tied to that root. Imagine we type grew into our search field. Grew is the past tense of grow. Lemmatization of grew brings you both grew and grow, but also growing and grown. Similarly, a database that is lemmatizing terms would take a search for mouse and bring back some results with mouse and some with mice.

If your search returns results which are the product of stemming or lemmatization and it’s not helpful, you can generally override it by typing your search term inside quotation marks (eg. “mouse” ) to stipulate that only results containing exactly what you typed are returned.

It’s important to note that although stemming and lemmatization somewhat extend your results net, they are not the same thing as truncation. Stemming and lemmatization both work within predefined boundaries. Truncation returns any word that fits the rules you set. Stemming toxin returns toxin and toxins. Truncating toxin* returns toxin and toxins, plus toxinaemia, toxinogenic, toxinogenics, toxinotyping, toxinotypes, toxin-3α-glucoside, toxinogenesis, etc.

It’s also important to know that while lemmatization overlaps slightly with the function of a database thesaurus, it is much more limited than a thesaurus.

Lemmatization is only based on linguistic connections between words, while the thesaurus pulls together terms based on scientific usage that often goes well beyond dictionary usage. Lemmatization, for instance, would not collate bovine, heifer, cows, oxen, steers, bulls, and calves with cattle, nor BCAA with branched-chain amino acids. The FSTA thesaurus would.

Not all database platforms incorporate automated extensions of your search terms. Some only incorporate it in certain search modes. A quick way to check if what you are typing is being changed or taken literally is to sort your results by date rather than relevance. To make the check even quicker, restrict your sample search to the title field so you do not need to open records to spot which words are being captured with what you typed.

Preset algorithms in a search interface can help you find the research information you need. If you grasp the limitations of these algorithms, however, and are able take matters into your own hands by truncating terms or using wildcards, you can significantly improve your searches.

The better you understand the tools you use to find research literature, the better a job you’ll do at building powerful, efficient, and effective searches.

-------------------------------- [1] Some database platforms call all symbols, wherever they are inserted into a word, wildcards.  If you can’t find truncation in a database’s help section, look at what they say about wildcards.

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Systematic Reviews

• Using Truncation and Wildcards

The definition of ‘truncation’ is to shorten or cut-off at the end. Truncation is used in database searches to ensure the retrieval of all possible variations of a search term.  All databases allow truncation, but the symbols used may vary, so it is best to check the database help for details.

Databases usually allow words to be truncated either at the end, or internally:

• Truncating a word at the end ensures that all variations of the word, beginning with a specific root, will be retrieved. This is particularly useful for retrieving singular and plural versions of words.

Be careful not to truncate terms too early, or you may retrieve a high number of irrelevant documents.

Most databases use an asterisk (*) to find alternate endings for terms. For example: therap* will retrieve therapy, therapies, therapists, therapeutic, therapeutical, etc.

• Truncating a word internally ensures that any variations of spelling of a word can be retrieved. For example, pediatrics or paedetrics

Internal truncation is available in some databases, allowing you to search for alternate spellings of words – extremely useful when searching for American and English spellings of words.

For example, using the OVID databases (MEDLINE, HAPI, JBI etc), a question mark included within a word can designate zero or one character in that place: colo?r will retrieve colour or color

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Managing Large-Volume Literature Searches in Research Synthesis Studies

Nancy l. havill.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing

Jennifer Leeman

Julia shaw-kokot.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kathleen Knafl

Jamie crandell, margarete sandelowski.

Systematic reviews typically require searching for, retrieving, and screening a large volume of literature, yet little guidance is available on how to manage this volume.

We detail methods used to search for and manage the yield of relevant citations for a mixed-methods mixed research synthesis study focused on the intersection between family life and childhood chronic physical conditions.

We designed inclusive search strings and searched nine bibliographic databases to identify relevant research regardless of methodological origin. We customized searches to individual databases, developed workarounds for transferring large volumes of citations and eliminating duplicate citations using reference management software, and used this software as a portal to select citations for inclusion or exclusion. We identified 67,555 citations, retrieved and screened 3,617 reports, and selected 802 reports for inclusion.

Discussion/Conclusions

Systematic reviews require search procedures to allow consistent and comprehensive approaches and the ability to work around technical obstacles.

Introduction

The escalating interest in systematic reviews and specifically research synthesis studies has generated a burgeoning literature focused on searching for and retrieving relevant research reports. Among the diverse topics addressed are search strategies (e.g., pearl-growing, citation searching; Papaioannou, Sutton, Carroll, Booth, & Wong, 2009 ; Schlosser, Wendt, Bhavnani, & Nail-Chiwetalu, 2006 ); techniques for locating reports of quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies (e.g., Cooke, Smith, & Booth, 2012 ; Walters, Wilczynski, & Haynes for the Hedges Team, 2006 ); comparisons of bibliographic databases to identify those yielding the best returns (e.g., McDonald, Taylor, & Adams, 1999 ; Stevinson & Lawlor, 2004 ); and recommendations for reporting search strategies and findings (e.g., Sampson, McGowan, Cogo, Grimshaw, Moher, & Lefebvre, 2009 ).

What has yet to be fully addressed, however, is the management of the large volume of literature likely to be found in even the most delimited review, the technical issues and workarounds necessary to search within diverse bibliographic databases across the social and behavioral science and practice disciplines, and the use of reference management software effectively and efficiently to track search activities and outcomes. Regardless of the scope of their reviews, reviewers will likely retrieve and therefore have to manage a much larger number of reports than they will ultimately include. The number of articles retrieved may be even greater when conducting mixed research synthesis studies, or reviews that include reports of qualitative, quantitative, and/or mixed-methods studies. Careful tracking of the references retrieved and of the decisions made throughout the search process is critical. Moreover, publication of systematic reviews of any kind now requires that the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA; http://www.prisma-statement.org/statement.htm ) guidelines be followed whereby reviewers detail the information sources, delimitations set for the search process, search strategies, and references identified, retrieved, and ultimately included in the review.

Accordingly, our purpose in this paper is to describe how we managed a literature search that initially yielded 67,555 documents in our ongoing National Institute of Nursing Research-funded research synthesis study—“Mixed-Methods Synthesis of Research on Childhood Chronic Conditions and Family”—hereafter referred to as the Family Synthesis study. We address how the search was designed, how reports retrieved were tracked, stored, organized, and evaluated for relevance, and how technical problems associated with managing this large volume of references were addressed.

The Family Synthesis Study

The purpose of the Family Synthesis study is to explore the intersection between family life and childhood chronic physical conditions. This is a mixed-methods mixed research synthesis study encompassing reports of empirical qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies, and qualitative and quantitative approaches for integrating the findings from these reports ( Sandelowski, Voils, Crandell, & Leeman, 2013 ). Thus, the literature search was designed to be broadly inclusive, with the goal of identifying the full breadth of research findings related to the topic regardless of methodology. Team members include researchers with expertise in family research and synthesis methods, and an information specialist with expertise in developing search strategies effective for a range of health and behavioral and social science databases.

What follows is a detailed description of how we moved from an initial search yield of 67,555 documents to the 802 reports we accepted into our study. We detail the key phases in this recursive process and the strategies employed to address the challenges we encountered in each phase. We also draw from what we learned from an initial scoping study ( Arksey & O’Malley, 2005 ) we conducted to pilot test and refine elements of the search process we describe here.

Conducting and Managing the Search

Defining key concepts.

As with all reviews of the literature, we began with an initial definition of the key concepts in our study: family, child, and chronic physical condition ( Cooper, 2010 ). Family was defined broadly as constituting a group of intimates living together or in close geographic proximity with strong emotional bonds and with a history and a future ( Fisher et al. 1998 ). Child was defined as an individual no older than 18 years. Chronic physical condition was defined as a medical condition lasting or expected to last at least 1 year and producing or expected to produce one or more of the following sequelae for the child: limitation in function or activity; dependence on medication, special diet, medical technology, assistive devices or persons; and/or the need for health services beyond what is usual for a child of the same age ( Stein, Bauman, Westbrook, Coupey, & Ireys, 1993 ).

Identifying Bibliographic Databases

In consultation with the team’s information specialist, and based on the results of our initial scoping study, we identified the databases most likely to include reports of research addressing the intersection between family life and childhood chronic physical conditions. During the scoping study, we had assessed the contribution of a range of databases, including Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EMBASE, ERIC, Family & Society Worldwide, PsychInfo, PubMed, Social Work Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science. After comparing search yields, we retained all of the databases except the Cochrane and Web of Science databases, which yielded no relevant articles not already identified in searches of the other databases.

Selecting Limits and Search Terms

Bibliographic databases provide a range of options for limiting the overall scope of the search for literature. We limited the search only to English language publications and, to ensure the inclusion of relatively current research ( Barroso, Sandelowski, & Voils, 2006 ), to the years 2000 to the present (or 2011). Consistent with the imperatives of a mixed research synthesis study, no limits were placed on particular types of research designs or methodologies.

The initial search was constructed as three separate topic-specific text-word search strings (i.e., lists of search terms), each of which addressed one of the three central concepts in our study, namely, family, child, and chronic physical condition. Each of these three topic search strings was pilot tested separately before being combined into a final strategy to ensure that the selected terms produced the desired results. By piloting each string separately, we were better able to troubleshoot when a group of terms yielded a much larger or smaller number of citations than anticipated. The family string included the terms family , caregiver , mothe r, father , sibling , brother , sister , grandparent , and parent . The child string included terms representing children from birth through adolescence, that is, the terms child , infant , newborn , adolescent , and teenager . To create the search string for chronic physical conditions we included both the general term chronic illness and terms for specific conditions because the results of the scoping study had demonstrated that the general term chronic illness identified many but not all relevant reports. The following disease-specific terms were included: anemia , arthritis , asthma , cancer , cystic fibrosis , diabetes , end-stage renal disease , heart problems , muscular dystrophy , and seizure disorders . These specific medical conditions were drawn from the physical diseases and conditions identified in the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs ( Davidoff, 2004 ). To this list, we added cancer and end-stage renal disease because they were identified in our scoping study as conditions frequently addressed in studies of life in families with children with chronic physical conditions.

Customizing Searches to Individual Databases

Because databases have different rules regarding syntax and types of search terms, truncation rules, and limiters, the topic search strings were customized for use in each of the selected databases ( Freund & Willett, 1982 ). With the exception of PubMed and CINAHL, we searched all databases using text-word searches with appropriate truncation. Truncation involves placing an asterisk after the base of a word with multiple alternate endings (e.g., child*) thereby cueing the database to identify all instances of words that begin with child , such as children, child, and childhood. Each of the words in the search string were thus entered and truncated as shown in the following illustration of a text-word search string for arthritis:

(child* or teen* or adolesc* or infant* or newborn*) AND (famil* or parent* or mother* or father* or caregiver* or “care giver* or grandparent* or grandmother* or grandfather* or sister* or brother* or sibling*) AND arthriti*

Text-word searching with truncation was not used in PubMed because this database automatically stops searching after a maximum number of variations of the term have been identified and, therefore, all eligible articles may not be identified. Instead of text words, we used Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms to search PubMed. MeSH terms are a controlled vocabulary used to index articles within the bibliographic database. The vocabulary is hierarchically structured, with more specific terms located below broader terms. For example, the narrow terms parents and siblings are located below the broader term family . To select appropriate MeSH search terms, we assessed the MeSH database’s definition for candidate broad terms (e.g., family ) and the associated narrower terms to ensure that all desired narrower terms were captured. For example, the MeSH databases definition for the term family is “a social group consisting of parents or parent substitutes and children” and includes all of the narrower terms identified in our family search string. Therefore, we used the MeSH term family , which we “exploded” to include all the narrower terms included below it in the hierarchy ( DeLuca et al. 2008 ). A final search string utilizing MeSH terms for PubMed for arthritis is shown below:

(“infant”[Mesh] OR “child”[Mesh] OR “adolescent”[Mesh]) AND (“Family”[Mesh]) or “Caregivers”[Mesh] or grandparent* or grandmother* or grandfather* or aunt* or uncle*) AND (“Arthritis”[Mesh]) OR “Joint Diseases”[Mesh])

Because research reports are entered into the PubMed database prior to being indexed with MeSH terms, the use of MeSH terms has the disadvantage of failing to capture reports that have yet to be indexed. We addressed this limitation largely by searching in multiple other databases in addition to PubMed, knowing that relevant reports were likely to be included in more than one database. CINAHL indexing is completed before entry into the database, and all other databases were searched using appropriate text words, allowing retrieval of reports potentially missed by the MeSH searches. In addition, we plan to update our searches in the fourth year of the study and thereby capture reports not available at the time of our initial search.

Care was taken to ensure the same terms and truncation combinations were used in each of the databases. This can be challenging in some databases, like EMBASE, due to the complex choices and searching conventions. For example, Elsevier’s EMBASE does not allow truncation within a phrase. With EMBASE we needed to turn off the MEDLINE search feature because we had already searched PubMed. Knowing the idiosyncrasies of each database is critical for retrieving the desired citations.

Managing the Reports Retrieved

The broad search criteria and search terms applied resulted in 67,555 potentially relevant citations. We therefore had to develop a data management strategy that would transfer a large number of citations, eliminate duplicate citations, and preserve the results of all searches so that we could systematically review them for relevance or repeat any of the searches. We used RefWorks ( http://www.refworks.com/ ), an online reference management software tool, to store, sort, and track the references identified through our searches. Most available reference management software tools can be electronically linked to a university library’s bibliographic databases in a way that allows for the direct transfer of data. The data we transferred to RefWorks included the full citation and abstract of each article as well as electronic links to the complete texts to which the university library had electronic access. Transferring retrieved citations to a reference manager has the advantages of not only preserving the search precisely as it occurred, but also of providing a relatively straightforward platform for the research team to review titles, abstracts, and full-text articles.

Yet, there are limits to the amount of data that can be included in a single transfer that are imposed both by the bibliographic databases for proprietary reasons and by the reference manager’s capacity to accept incoming files. For example, our full PubMed search yielded 15,239 references, which was too big for Refworks to accept as a single transfer. We then attempted to transfer the results of the search in segments, but we were limited to transferring a maximum of 500 citations at a time, which would have required over 30 separate transfers. Because transferring a large search in a series of smaller segments would have been extremely time consuming, we organized the search process as a series of condition-specific searches that each resulted in datasets that were small enough to be moved intact. This was accomplished by creating a separate RefWorks file for each bibliographic database, running each disease/condition as a separate search in each database, and then moving these smaller datasets into separate condition-specific folders within each RefWorks file. We also created text-files of all search results as a backup in case the reference manager databases became corrupted. Using this process, 9 RefWorks storage databases were created, 1 for each of the bibliographic search databases (e.g., PubMed, ERIC); each of these databases had 11 separate folders for the results of the individual condition-specific searches and the search on the general term chronic illness ( Figure 1 ).

Using RefWorks® to Manage Search Yields

Duplicate Deletion

Conducting multiple searches individually resulted in numerous duplicate references both within and across the RefWorks databases. RefWorks allows users to identify duplicates across files within a database but not across databases. Accordingly, we developed a systematic approach whereby duplicate citations were identified and eliminated first within each of the nine RefWorks databases containing the files downloaded from the bibliographic databases. We then combined the condition-specific files from the original nine RefWorks databases into 11 new RefWorks databases, one for each condition. Within these condition-specific databases we were able to identify and then eliminate duplicate records occurring across the bibliographic databases ( Figure 1 ).

RefWorks offers two options for viewing duplicates—exact and close duplicates—and both were applied. We used close duplicates because it identified duplicates that were missed by the exact duplicate function, such as when databases used different conventions to identify authors (e.g., full names versus initials) resulting in duplicate files that were not identified by the exact duplicate function. We did not automatically delete duplicates but rather examined and manually deleted each identified duplicate. This was necessary because sometimes the reference manager mis-identified references as duplicates, such as identifying “Part II” of an article as a duplicate of “Part I.” Through this process, 24,584 references were identified and eliminated as duplicates, leaving an initial dataset of 43,114 references for review.

Report Review and Selection

The study team then reviewed titles, abstracts, and/or the full texts of these 43,114 references to identify those that met criteria for inclusion. The inclusion and exclusion criteria evolved over the course of the review as the team gained familiarity with the available literature and refined the study’s scope feasibly to accommodate the resources available to conduct the review ( Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010 ). These criteria evolved primarily from a refined conceptualization of family that delimited the reports of studies to be included to those containing findings about: (a) family structure, defined as the ordered roles and relationships within the family, including routines and rituals of everyday family life, and division of labor; (b) family functioning, defined as characteristics of the family system (e.g., resilience, cohesiveness, environment, climate, values, family system stress) and interactions among family members (e.g., decision making, problem solving, information sharing, communication); (c) family relationships, defined as the nature and quality of relations among family members (e.g., marital adjustment, conflict and conflict resolution, withdrawal, attachment, relationship satisfaction); and/or (d) family resources, defined as factors external to the family that influence the quality of family life, including all types and sources of social support, including support from extended family and healthcare providers.

The team was able to use RefWorks as a portal to view titles and abstracts and, when needed, to link to the full text of most articles. In the rare cases that the university library did not own a subscription for a journal in which an article appeared, the article was requested through inter-library loan. Two members of the team reviewed each citation and maintained a hard-copy Excel spreadsheet that listed all citations in the RefWorks files, which they used to track references selected for inclusion and to document reasons for exclusion. This process was completed independently for each of the 11 condition-specific databases. The two reviewers then met to compare their decisions. In those cases where they differed, reviewers discussed the disputed reports to reach consensus. For all disputed reports, the full text of the article was retrieved and reviewed. Final decisions were recorded on a consensus spreadsheet, which documented the articles selected for inclusion and exclusion and the reasons for exclusion.

Completing the PRISMA Diagram

Throughout the process of search, retrieval, and selection of research reports, spreadsheets were maintained tracking the numbers of reports identified in each step and the reasons for exclusion. Therefore, completing the PRISMA diagram was a rather straightforward exercise in locating numbers and other information from existing spreadsheets ( Figure 2 ).

PRISMA Flow Diagram

We employed a broadly inclusive approach to search for all research reports of studies related to the intersection of family life and childhood chronic physical conditions regardless of methodology. Mixed-methods mixed research synthesis studies are increasingly being called for as a means of capturing more of the evidence available to guide practice. Such studies are especially well suited to contribute evidence on contextual factors that influence intervention implementation and effectiveness, and on patients’ and providers’ perspectives on health problems and interventions to address those problems ( Leeman, Voils, & Sandelowski, in press ). Capturing findings generated by diverse research methods requires broad search and retrieval processes similar to the one described here whereby all relevant databases were searched deliberately to achieve topical, conceptual, and methodological scope with few a priori restrictions.

Our approach is in many ways similar to that used in scoping studies, which involve mapping the available literature to assess its breadth and depth and to identify potential gaps ( Arksey & O’Malley, 2005 ; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Davis, Drey, & Gould, 2009 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010 ). Although our ultimate goal extends well beyond merely scoping the literature to include the actual synthesis of findings across studies, we used scoping largely as a search strategy because it allowed us to map the landscape of literature addressing families with children with chronic conditions. This map then served as the backdrop for choosing the literature that would be included in our research synthesis and for clearly defining what was not included. Knowing where we elected not to go on the map will serve to locate, contextualize, and clarify the boundaries of the research syntheses we will produce. In our case, using scoping as a search strategy also allowed us to develop a more refined conceptualization of family, a topic we will address in more detail in a future paper.

Conducting an inclusive research synthesis study mandates an inclusive search strategy that will likely yield thousands of references to review. This process requires not only procedures to organize search yields and allow systematic, consistent, and comprehensive approaches for review, but also the ability and creativity to work around technical obstacles.

Acknowledgments

The preparation of this article was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health under award number R01NR012445: “Mixed-Methods Synthesis of Research on Childhood Chronic Conditions and Family.”

“Mixed-methods synthesis of research on childhood chronic conditions and family” (K. Knafl & M. Sandelowski, PIs; J. Leeman, J. Crandell, & J. Shaw-Kokot, co-Is). National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health, R01NR012445, September 1, 2011-June 30, 2016.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Contributor Information

Nancy L. Havill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Jennifer Leeman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Julia Shaw-Kokot, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kathleen Knafl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Jamie Crandell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Margarete Sandelowski, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

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Conducting a Literature Review

• Getting Started
• Developing a Question
• Searching the Literature
• Identifying Peer-Reviewed Resources
• Managing Results
• Analyzing the Literature
• Writing the Review

Need Help? Ask Your librarian!

Search Strategies

• Boolean Operators

Once you have identified the key concepts of your research question (see "Developing a Question"), you can use those concepts to develop keywords for your search strategy. The following tips and techniques will help you design a precise and relevant search strategy.

Keywords are any words you might use to search the record of an article, book, or other material in library databases. The database searches through the metadata (such as title, authors, publication, abstract, etc.) to find resources that contain the word you searched, and may also search through the full text of the material.

Keywords are most successful when you're searching for the words that the authors use to describe the research topic, as most databases will search for those specific words within the record of the article. To increase your chance of returning relevant results, consider all of the words that  might  be used to describe the research you're trying to find, and try some of these out in sample searches to determine which words return the best results.

Search Tips - Keywords

• Search for singular and plural terms together: (physician OR physicians)
• Search for both the American and British spelling of words: (behavior OR behaviour)
• Search for synonyms of terms together: (teenager OR adolescent)
• Search for phrases inside of quotation marks: ("young adult")

Use Boolean operators to combine keywords for more precise search results. 

AND - If the term must be included in your search:

influenza AND vaccine

OR - If terms are interchangeable, i.e. synonyms. Place OR'd terms within parentheses:

(influenza OR flu) AND vaccine

NOT - If a term should not be included in your search. This Boolean operator is rarely necessary for literature reviews.

(influenza OR flu) AND vaccine NOT H1N1

Note how we've used parentheses in the examples above. Search strings like these are similar to mathematical equations, where you perform the actions within the parentheses before proceeding from left to right to run the search. For example, using the search [(influenza OR flu) AND vaccine] will find results that have a term relating to influenza/flu, as well as the term vaccine.

If we moved the parentheses, it would be a very different search. [influenza OR (flu AND vaccine)] will provide results that use the term influenza, as well as results that use both the terms flu and vaccine. This means you would get results having to do with influenza but perhaps nothing to do with vaccination. 

Here are a few examples of how this search would be different depending on the arrangement of booleans and keywords. The area highlighted in pink represents the search results that would be returned with this search.

Truncation allows you to quickly include all variations of a word in your search. Use the root of the keyword and add an asterisk (*). For example:

nurs* = nurse, nurses, nursing, nursery

IMPORTANT: Notice that "nursery" is also retrieved in the above search. Truncation will save you from having to include a large number of synonyms, but it will also add a certain number of irrelevant results. You can limit this effect by using the NOT Boolean operator, i.e. NOT nursery.

Wild cards allow you to replace a letter in a keyword to retrieve all variations of the spelling. For example:

p?ediatric = pediatric, paediatric

Free-Text vs. Thesaurus Searching

While you can search any word as a keyword, databases also contain an official list of the terms they use to describe the subject of each article, called Subject Headings. You can look up Subject Headings in the thesaurus of the database, using the thesaurus's search box to pull up the recommended Subject Heading for a given keyword. When searching specifically for Subject Headings, the database will only search the Subject Headings field within the record of each article (ie, not the title, abstract, etc.). This is a much more targeted method of searching, and is an excellent addition to your search strategy. 

A strong search strategy will use both free-text (keyword) searching and thesaurus searching, to ensure that all relevant articles have been retrieved by the search. The lists below outline the strengths and weaknesses of both types of search strategies.

Free-Text Searching

• Natural language words describing your topic
• More flexible search strategy - can use any term in any combination
• Database looks for keywords anywhere in the record - not necessarily connected together
• May yield too many or too few results
• May yield many irrelevant results

Thesaurus Searching

• Pre-defined "controlled vocabulary" words used to describe the content of each item in a database
• Less flexible search strategy - need to know the exact controlled vocabulary term
• Database looks for subjects only in the subject heading or descriptor field, where the most relevant words appear
• If too many results, you can use subheadings to focus on one aspect of a broader topic
• Results are usually very relevant to the topic

MIT Libraries. Database Search Tips: Keywords vs. Subjects. https://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=175963&p=1160804

Each database has their own thesaurus. You will need to adapt your search strategy for each database to take advantage of their unique thesaurus.

PubMed uses MeSH terms (Medical Subject Headings). You can learn more about finding and using MeSH terms here:

• The Basics of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in MEDLINE/PubMed: A Tutorial

CINAHL uses CINAHL Headings. You can learn more about finding and use these terms here:

• Using CINAHL/MeSH Headings

In other databases, look for a link with the terms "headings", "subject headings", or "thesaurus" to find the appropriate thesaurus terms for your search.

Citation Searching

Citation searching is a search strategy that allows you to search either forward or backwards time through the literature based on an identified relevant article:

You can search forward in time by using databases that allow you to search for other articles that have cited the identified relevant article. (Web of Science and Google Scholar can do this automatically.)

• Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)
• Google Scholar

You can search backward in time by reviewing the reference list of the identified relevant article for additional article citations.

For more information about how to perform citation searches, check out this guide from the University of Toledo Libraries:

• How To: Cited Reference Searches in Web of Science Guide from the University of Toledo

Retrieving Materials

Select a database.

When searching for articles, it is best to use an appropriate subject database rather than the SearchIT catalog. Be sure to select your database from the Spokane Academic Library homepage to ensure that you will have access to full-text articles.

"Find It @ WSU" Button in PubMed

When you have found an article that you would like to read in its entirety, look for the "Find It @ WSU" Button. This button will take you to the article entry in the SearchIT catalog.

Here's what that looks like in PubMed.

"Find It @ WSU" Button in CINAHL

"Find It @ WSU" Button in PsycINFO

Accessing the Full-Text Article

After selecting the "Find It @ WSU" Button, you will be taken to the article entry in SearchIT. Select the link under the Access Options box to be directed to the full-text article. 

If an article is not available in the WSU Libraries collection, you can request the article through interlibrary loan by selecting the link under "Access Options".

See the Using Interlibrary Loan section for more information.

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Research Process

• Brainstorming
• Explore Google This link opens in a new window
• Explore Web Resources
• Explore Background Information
• Explore Books
• Explore Scholarly Articles
• Narrowing a Topic
• Primary and Secondary Resources
• Academic, Popular & Trade Publications
• Scholarly and Peer-Reviewed Journals
• Grey Literature
• Clinical Trials
• Evidence Based Treatment
• Scholarly Research
• Database Research Log
• Search Limits
• Keyword Searching
• Boolean Operators
• Phrase Searching
• Truncation & Wildcard Symbols
• Proximity Searching
• Field Codes
• Subject Terms and Database Thesauri
• Reading a Scientific Article
• Website Evaluation
• Article Keywords and Subject Terms
• Cited References
• Citing Articles
• Related Results
• Search Within Publication
• Database Alerts & RSS Feeds
• Personal Database Accounts
• Persistent URLs
• Literature Gap and Future Research
• Web of Knowledge
• Annual Reviews
• Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
• Finding Seminal Works
• Exhausting the Literature
• Finding Dissertations
• Researching Theoretical Frameworks
• Research Methods & Design
• Tests and Measurements
• Organizing Research & Citations This link opens in a new window
• Scholarly Publication
• Learn the Library This link opens in a new window

Truncation lets you search for a word that could have multiple endings. The symbol for truncation is usually an * at the point where the spelling of the word could change. For example, PTSD AND music* would find articles with the terms PTSD and music/musical/musician/musicians/musicality in them. Truncation is very useful when you know one of your search terms has several endings, but all of the variations represent basically the same idea. Using truncation will help you complete your search faster because you will not have to manually type in and search every variation of the word.

Wildcard Symbols

There are several wildcard symbols that can be used in several databases, such as EBSCOHost and ProQuest, to enhance your search string. 

Asterisk wildcard (*) - Is used between words where variations may be possible. Example:  "responsibility * budgeting" can return results such as, " responsibility-centered budgeting" or " responsibility center budgeting"

Question mark wildcard (?) - Is used to replace an unknown character. Example: wom ? n will return results for women or woman

See the links below to learn more about these symbols in specific databases. 

• EBSCOHost Wildcard and Truncation Symbols
• Gale Academic OneFile Wildcard Characters
• ProQuest Wildcards and Truncation

Searching 101 Part 4 Video

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• URL: https://resources.nu.edu/researchprocess

• Subject guides
• Researching for your literature review
• Develop a search strategy

Researching for your literature review: Develop a search strategy

• Literature reviews
• Literature sources
• Getting started
• Keyword search activity
• Subject search activity
• Combined keyword and subject searching
• Online tutorials
• Apply search limits
• Run a search in different databases
• Supplementary searching
• Save your searches
• Manage results

Identify key terms and concepts

Start developing a search strategy by identifying the key words and concepts within your research question. The aim is to identify the words likely to have been used in the published literature on this topic.

For example: What are the key infection control strategies for preventing the transmission of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in aged care homes .

Treat each component as a separate concept so that your topic is organised into separate blocks (concepts).

For each concept block, list the key words derived from your research question, as well as any other relevant terms or synonyms that you have found in your preliminary searches. Also consider singular and plural forms of words, variant spellings, acronyms and relevant index terms (subject headings).  

As part of the process of developing a search strategy, it is recommended that you keep a master list of search terms for each key concept. This will make it easier when it comes to translating your search strategy across multiple database platforms. 

Concept map template for documenting search terms

Combine search terms and concepts

Boolean operators are used to combine the different concepts in your topic to form a search strategy. The main operators used to connect your terms are AND and OR . See an explanation below:

• Link keywords related to a single concept with OR
• Linking with OR broadens a search (increases the number of results) by searching for any of the alternative keywords

Example: nursing home OR aged care home

• Link different concepts with AND
• Linking with AND narrows a search (reduces the number of results) by retrieving only those records that include all of your specified keywords

Example: nursing home AND infection control

• using NOT narrows a search by excluding results that contain certain search terms
• Most searches do not require the use of the NOT operator

Example: aged care homes NOT residential homes will retrieve all the results that include the words aged care homes but don't include the words residential homes . So if an article discussed both concepts this article would not be retrieved as it would be excluded on the basis of the words residential homes .

See the website for venn diagrams demonstrating the function of AND/OR/NOT:

Combine the search terms using Boolean

Advanced search operators - truncation and wildcards

By using a truncation symbol you can capture all of the various endings possible for a particular word. This may increase the number of results and reduce the likelihood of missing something relevant. Some tips about truncation:

• The truncation symbol is generally an asterisk symbol * and is added at the end of a word.
• It may be added to the root of a word that is a word in itself. Example: prevent * will retrieve prevent, prevent ing , prevent ion prevent ative etc. It may also be added to the root of a word that is not a word in itself. Example: strateg * will retrieve strateg y , strateg ies , strateg ic , strateg ize etc.
• If you don't want to retrieve all possible variations, an easy alternative is to utilise the OR operator instead e.g. strategy OR strategies. Always use OR instead of truncation where the root word is too small e.g. ill OR illness instead of ill*

There are also wildcard symbols that function like truncation but are often used in the middle of a word to replace zero, one or more characters.

• Unlike the truncator which is usually an asterisk, wildcards vary across database platforms
• Common wildcards symbols are the question mark ? and hash #.
• Example:  wom # n finds woman or women, p ? ediatric finds pediatric or paediatric.  

See the Database search tips for details of these operators, or check the Help link in any database.

Phrase searching

For words that you want to keep as a phrase, place two or more words in "inverted commas" or "quote marks". This will ensure word order is maintained and that you only retrieve results that have those words appearing together.

Example: “nursing homes”

There are a few databases that don't require the use of quote marks such as Ovid Medline and other databases in the Ovid suite. The Database search tips provides details on phrase searching in key databases, or you can check the Help link in any database.

Subject headings (index terms)

Identify appropriate subject headings (index terms).

Many databases use subject headings to index content. These are selected from a controlled list and describe what the article is about. 

A comprehensive search strategy is often best achieved by using a combination of keywords and subject headings where possible.

In-depth knowledge of subject headings is not required for users to benefit from improved search performance using them in their searches.

Advantages of subject searching:

• Helps locate articles that use synonyms, variant spellings, plurals
• Search terms don’t have to appear in the title or abstract

Note: Subject headings are often unique to a particular database, so you will need to look for appropriate subject headings in each database you intend to use.

Subject headings are not available for every topic, and it is best to only select them if they relate closely to your area of interest.

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)

The MeSH thesaurus provides standard terminology, imposing uniformity and consistency on the indexing of biomedical literature. In Pubmed/Medline each record is tagged with  MeSH  (Medical Subject Headings).

The MeSH vocabulary includes:

• Represent concepts found in the biomedical literature
• Some headings are commonly considered for every article (eg. Species (including humans), Sex, Age groups (for humans), Historical time periods)
• attached to MeSH headings to describe a specific aspect of a concept
• describe the type of publication being indexed; i.e., what the item is, not what the article is about (eg. Letter, Review, Randomized Controlled Trial)
• Terms in a separate thesaurus, primarily substance terms

Create a 'gold set'

It is useful to build a ‘sample set’ or ‘gold set’ of relevant references before you develop your search strategy..

Sources for a 'gold set' may include:

• key papers recommended by subject experts or supervisors
• citation searching - looking at a reference list to see who has been cited, or using a citation database (eg. Scopus, Web of Science) to see who has cited a known relevant article
• results of preliminary scoping searches.

The papers in your 'gold set' can then be used to help you identify relevant search terms

• Look up your 'gold set' articles in a database that you will use for your literature review. For the articles indexed in the database, look at the records to see what keywords and/or subject headings are listed.

The 'gold set' will also provide a means of testing your search strategy

• When an article in the sample set that is also indexed in the database is not retrieved, your search strategy can be revised in order to include it (see what concepts or keywords can be incorporated into your search strategy so that the article is retrieved).
• If your search strategy is retrieving a lot of irrelevant results, look at the irrelevant records to determine why they are being retrieved. What keywords or subject headings are causing them to appear? Can you change these without losing any relevant articles from your results?
• Information on the process of testing your search strategy using a gold set can be found in the systematic review guide

Example search strategy

A search strategy is the planned and structured organisation of terms used to search a database.

An example of a search strategy incorporating all three concepts, that could be applied to different databases is shown below:

You will use a combination of search operators to construct a search strategy, so it’s important to keep your concepts grouped together correctly. This can be done with parentheses (round brackets), or by searching for each concept separately or on a separate line.

The above search strategy in a nested format (combined into a single line using parentheses) would look like:

("infection control*" OR "infection prevention") AND ("methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus" OR "meticillin resistant staphylococcus aureus" OR MRSA) AND ( "aged care home*" OR "nursing home*")

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• Research guides

Advanced Search Techniques

Truncation & wildcards.

Truncation  uses an asterisk ( * ) or other symbols such as    !, ?, or # to search for multiple forms of the same root word. (Look for the database help page if you are unsure what symbols it uses.) For example:

• Searching gentrif* will find results that include gentrification , gentrifying , and gentrified   

A  wildcard  is a symbol that takes the place of an unknown character or set of characters. Commonly used wildcards are the asterisk ( * ) and the question mark ( ? ). (Look for the database help page if you are unsure what symbols it uses.)

The question mark represents only one unknown character. For example:

• Searching the word   wom?n   will have results that include   women  and   woman .

The asterisk can represent more than one character. For example:

• If you didn't know whether the spelling was color or colour, searching colo*r will search both spellings.

Truncation Example

The  Jstor  search pictured below is intended to find sources that discuss illustrated editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ,  illustrat*   is used to search for sources that include  illustrate ,  illustration , illustrator , illustrating, and  illustrated.

Wildcard Example

In this International Political Science Abstracts example pictured below, a wildcard is being used because of the difference between the American spelling, labor , and the British spelling, labour . By using the wildcard both versions will be searched.

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• Last Updated: Oct 5, 2023 7:16 AM
• Subjects: General
• Tags: advanced searching , searching

How to Search the Literature (Advanced)

• Purpose of this Guide
• Formulate a Research Question
• Identify Search Concepts
• Identify Search Terms
• Truncation and Wildcards
• Boolean Operators
• Select a Resource to Search
• Search a Database
• Translate a Search Strategy
• Manage Search Strategies and Results
• Find the Full Text within McMaster Libraries' Collection
• Find the Full Text on a Journal's Website
• Find the Full Text Through the Interlibrary Loans Service
• Find Conference Proceedings Abstracts
• Find the Full Text to Non-English Literature

Truncation and wildcards can be applied to a keyword search in a database or search engine to broaden your results and allow you to look for variations of words.

The truncation symbol can be used in a keyword search to retrieve alternate word endings

• e.g. surg* will retrieve surgery, surgeries, surgeon, or surgical
• e.g. stud* will retrieve study, studies, student, students, etc.
• Ovid Databases  (e.g. Medline, Embase, AMED, PsycINFO) truncation symbol is an asterisk (*) or dollar sign ($)
• EBSCO Databases  (e.g. CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Social Science Index) truncation symbol is an asterisk (*)
• PubMed  truncation symbol is an asterisk (*)
• Web of Science  truncation symbol is an asterisk (*)
• Check the help screen of other databases to find out which symbols are used

Wildcards are symbols that can optionally replace a single letter in a word

• This is useful when dealing with variant spelling (e.g. pediatric and paediatric)
• e.g. p?ediatric will return results with paediatric or pediatric
• EBSCO Databases  wildcard is the question mark (?)  or   hash tag (#)
• Web of Science  wildcard is the dollar sign ($) or question mark (?)
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Searching for Systematic Reviews: Advanced search techniques

• Define your search question
• Searching Databases
• Drawing up your search strategy
• Advanced search techniques
• Using Filters
• Grey Literature
• Recording your search strategy and results
• Managing References
• Further information
• Library Workshops, Drop ins and 1-2-1s
• AI tools in evidence synthesis

Further help

• Search operators in bibliographic databases Resource produced by NHS Shrewsbury & Telford Health Library providing guidance on using search operators in bibliographic databases.
• Ovid Medline Database Guide - Advanced Searching Find out more about advanced search techniques on Ovid Medline (many applicable to other databases on the Ovid platform) including proximity searching, truncation and wildcards.

Most platforms and databases will provide guidance on advanced search techniques available. Visit the help/training section linked from the database or search online for the name of the database and the technique you wish to apply to locate guidance if it isn't listed on this page..

The asterisk * [Shift and 8 on a standard UK keyboard] is used by many databases - Scopus, Web of Science, all databases on the Ovid platform (Medline, Embase, PyscInfo etc), on the EBSCO platform (ERIC, CINAHL etc), on the NHS HDAS databases and the PROQUEST platform as a truncation command. You may also see $ used as a truncation symbol in databases on the Ovid platform but please note that $ is used as a different command in other databases.

Truncation instructs the database that when you are searching for a free-text keyword search that it should search for the root of the word you have typed in and then retrieve any alternate endings.

This is excellent for searching for plurals without having to type out both the singular and plural in your search, but will find also find any other alternative endings (some of which may not be relevant to your topic).

A keyword search for dentist* would retrieve any article which has the word dentist or dentists or dentistry somewhere in the title, abstract or other field.  A keyword search for  therap * would retrieve any articles where the word therapy or therapies appeared, but would also retrieve articles which included the word therapeutic (likely to be relevant) and also therapist(s) (perhaps less likely to be relevant if you were initially wanting to search for therapies).

In Web of Science the asterisk (*) represents any group of characters, including no character and can also be used within a word, e.g. s*food matches seafood and soyfood.

In those databases which use Subject Headings it is recommended that you search initially for your term in full without using truncation because if truncation is used then the database may fail to suggest appropriate subject headings even if one or more exist. Once you have located a relevant subject heading or headings for the concept then you can start to type in your keywords for that concept using truncation. If you receive an error message in Ovid that the search cannot be mapped to a subject heading (sometimes happens when using truncation) then simply untick the map box to subject heading before repeating the search. Remember to re-tick the box when you come to search for a new concept and you wish to see what subject headings are available.  

PubMed Truncation: truncation, or finding all terms that begin with a given string of text, is generally not a recommended search technique for PubMed as truncation bypasses Automatic Term Mapping [to Subject Headings] and automatic explosion. 

Floating subheadings

Subheadings are used to further describe a particular aspect of a subject heading in databases such as Medline, Embase and Cinahl.

An example might be (for Medline) 'thromboembolism/prevention and control' or the two-letter subheading abbreviation -- thromboembolism/pc. 'T h ro mboembolism ' is the subject heading and 'prevention and control' one of its subheadings (this will retrieve a subset of the results which have been tagged with the thromboembolism subject heading, limiting the results to only those articles discussing the prevention and control aspect).

However, it is possible in these databases to search for the subheading independent of any subject heading. This allows you to retrieve all articles which have been tagged with a particular subheading but without having to specify what subject headings it is attached to. A list of subheadings and abbreviations  is available. 

This can be very useful as seen in the example below where the search aims to retrieve any article in Medline tagged with the  floa ting   subheadings of Adverse Effects (ae), Complications (co) or Drug Effects (de) [search line 43] .  In the  Ovid  databases to search using floating subheadings you can type the two letter subheading abbreviation followed by . fs.  Keyword searches for safety, side effects, toxicity, adverse effects, etc were also undertaken in the search strategy [search lines 44-45] and the results brought together using OR [search line 46] before being combined with other elements of the search, e.g. the specific patient population and drug intervention which was being reviewed [for the full search strategy see the Appendix of the Cochrane Review linked below]. 

43. (ae or co or de).fs. 44. (safe or safety or (side adj1 effect*) or (undesirable adj1 effect*) or (treatment adj1 emergent) or tolerability or tolerance or tolerate or toxicity or toxic or adrs or adr or harm or harms or harmful or complication* or risk or risks or (unintended adj1 event*) or (unintended adj1 effect*)).ti,ab. 45. (adverse adj2 (effect or effects or reaction or reactions or event or events or outcome or outcomes)).ti,ab. 46. 43 or 44 or 45

Extract of Medline (Ovid) search strategy from: Storebø, O., Ramstad, E., Krogh, H., Nilausen, T., Skoog, M., Holmskov, M., Rosendal, S., Groth, C., Magnusson, F.L., Moreira-Maia, C.R., Gillies, D., Buch Rasmussen, K., Gauci, D., Zwi, M., Kirubakaran, R., Forsbøl, B., Simonsen, E., Gluud, C. (2015), 'Methylphenidate for children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)',  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , Issue 11. Art. No.: CD009885.  DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD009885.pub2

PRESS: Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies

Performing a high quality electronic search of information resources ensures the accuracy and completeness of the evidence used in your review. However, errors have been found in search strategies of systematic reviews (even Cochrane ones!). PRESS EBC is an evidence-based checklist that has been developed to guide and inform the peer review of search strategies for database searching and can also be used to check your own search strategy.

• PRESS 2015 Guideline Evidence-Based Checklist Structured tool for peer-reviewing systematic reviews.
• PRESS Guideline — Search Submission & Peer Review Assessment Form to be filled in by searcher and reviewer undertaking the peer review assessment of the systematic review.

Yale MeSH Analyzer

The Yale MeSH Analyzer allows you to enter PMIDs* for different articles (up to 20 at a time) and generates a MeSH analysis grid presenting the ways these articles are indexed in the MEDLINE database (i.e. which subject headings have been assigned to each article) in an easy-to-scan tabular format.

This can provide you with a means to generate useful MeSH (Medline Subject Headings) from articles on your topic which you know are relevant. You can also use it to  help identify the problems in your search strategy as you can easily scan the grid and identify appropriate MesH terms, term variants, indexing consistency, and the reasons why some articles are retrieved and others are not. This inevitably leads to fresh iterations of the search strategy to include missing important terms.

*PMIDs are a unique identifying number which are assigned to each article in the Medline database (appearing in the records of articles in both PubMed and Medline on OvidSP).

• Yale MeSH Analyzer more... less... When conducting a comprehensive search, it is critical to design a strategy that retrieves all potentially relevant articles. Experienced searchers know the power of using controlled vocabularies but also the frustration of not being able to pinpoint articles known to be relevant but missing from the initial retrieval set. Librarians have long analyzed Medical Subject Headings to design and refine searches. A MeSH analysis grid can help identify the problems in your search strategy by presenting the ways articles are indexed in the MEDLINE database in an easy-to-scan tabular format. Typically, each column in the grid represents an article, with identifying information of the article at the top of the column, such as the PMID, the author, and the year of publication. The MeSH terms are sorted and grouped alphabetically for ease of scanning. Librarians can then easily scan the grid and identify appropriate MesH terms, term variants, indexing consistency, and the reasons why some articles are retrieved and others are not. This inevitably leads to fresh iterations of the search strategy to include missing important terms. In addition to MeSH terms, author-assigned keywords, article titles, and abstracts can be included in the analysis grid.

Proximity Searching

Proximity or adjacency searching using keywords allows you to search for two words or phrases that appear within a set number of words of each other (in any order). This is less precise than a phrase search (see the box on this page) but ensures it is more likely that the words/phrases will be related than a simple AND search. Different databases require you to type in different operators/commands in order to undertake a proximity search. Check the help pages for the database platform you are searching if the commands are not listed below.

OvidSP platform databases  and HDAS (NHS) databases,  e.g. Medline, Embase, PsycInfo

The ADJ operators finds two terms next to each other in the specified order. The ADJ1 operators finds two terms next to each other in any order. The ADJ2 operator finds terms in any order and with one word (or none) between them. The ADJ3 operator finds terms in any order with two words (or fewer) between them and so on.

ADJ n  - where n  represents the number of words that could appear between your keywords/phrase, e.g. middle ear adj4 infect* would search for the phrase "middle ear" within 3 words (or fewer) of the word infection, infectious, etc

Retrieving:

middle ear infection

infected middle ear

infection of the middle ear

middle-ear derived infections, and so on.

CINAHL (EBSCO platform)

Use N n  - where  n  represents the number of word s that could appear between your keywords/phrase, e.g.  "mid dle ear" N 3   infect*

Note that whilst the N proximity searching will find terms regardless of the order in which they appear, the Within operator (W) will find only those articles where the terms appear in the order they were entered. For example, typing kidney W3 failure will retrieve articles which include the phrases 'kidney failure'/'kidney transplant failure'/'kidney graft failure' but not 'failure of the kidneys'.

Web of Science

Use NEAR/ n   - where  n  represents the number of word s that could appear between your keywords/phrase, e.g.  "middle ear" NEAR/3 infect*

Using  W/n restricts to n words between the two words; the word order is not set, e.g. pain W/5 morphine will retrieve 'pain controlled using morphine' as well as 'morphine to control pain'

Pre/n restricts to n words between the two words, but the word order is as set, e.g. newborn PRE/3 screening will retrieve 'newborn hearing screening' but not 'screening of the newborn'

Subject headings and Keyword searching

Subject heading search

It is important when searching databases which have a thesaurus and which tag articles with subject headings (Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cinahl, etc) that your search strategy combines (with OR) both relevant subject headings and keyword/free-text searches on a particular concept. For full details see the Drawing up your search strategy tab .

In databases on the Ovid platform a subject heading search is shown with a / after the term:

drug hypersensitivity/ 

If the subject heading has been exploded to include narrower more specific terms then this will show with exp before it: 

exp drug hypersensitivity/

If the subject heading has been focussed (limiting to articles where the selected subject heading is a major concept of the article) then this will show as:

*drug hypersensitivity/ 

exp * drug hypersensitivity/.

In CINAHL on the EBSCO platform you will see MH used to indicate that a subject heading has been searched; a + sign to indicate the subject heading has been exploded; and MM is used to indicate that the subject heading has been limited to results where this is a focussed/major concept of the article.

(MH "Wound Care") - subject heading search (MH "Wound Care+") - exploded subject heading search (MM "Wound Care+") - exploded and focusssed/major concept search.

The databases on the NICE HDAS platform use the same symbols as the Ovid platform databases above.

Keyword search

The default keyword search on databases on the Ovid platform is a multi-purpose search across several fields including title, abstract, original title, name of substance word, subject heading word, keyword heading word, protocol supplementary concept word, rare disease supplementary concept word, unique identifier. This is shown as .mp search

In Cinahl the default keyword search is of the  Title, Abstract and Subject headings fields.

In the NICE HDAS databases the default keyword search is of Title and Abstract.

It is possible to select a more specific keyword search on those databases that have a broader multi-purpose search as default - see the 'Searching in the Title and Abstract fields' box on this page.

Searching in the Title and Abstract fields

In the search strategies of some Cochrane reviews for searches undertaken on databases on the Ovid platform with subject headings/thesaurus trees, e.g. Medline, Cinahl, Embase, PsycINFO, and so on, you may notice that they use .tw when searching for keywords. This indicates a free text search in just the title and abstract fields.

The default in the Ovid databases is for a .mp search.

In order to carry out a free text search in just the title and abstract fields in Ovid you need to manually type in the letters .tw after your free text terms e.g. wheez*.tw in the search box. If you simply type in a search term it will default to the .mp search.

In Cinahl on the EBSCO platform you need to search for your terms in the Title and in the Abstract and OR these together:

appearing in the search strategy as

Using keyword searching limited to the Title and Abstract field should reduce the number of results which are retrieved in error or are only on the periphery of your subject. If you do this, please be aware that you will need to ensure that you have definitely also included all relevant subject headings in your search strategy otherwise you risk missing out on useful results.

Ovid Medline search strategy extract from: 

Marcano Belisario, J.S., Huckvale, K., Greenfield, G., Car, J., Gunn, L.H. (2013), 'Smartphone and tablet self management apps for asthma',  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , Issue 11. Art. No.: CD010013. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD010013.pub2 .

As well as truncation other wildcards are available to use on some databases. These wildcards differ from database to database so it is worth checking (via their help pages) if you are looking for a particular function on a database platform.

OvidSP databases  (e.g. Medline, Embase, PsycINFO)

• Use # inside or at the end of a word to replace exactly one character, e.g. wom#n for women and woman.
• Use ? inside or at the end of a word to replace zero or one character, e.g. robot? for robot OR robots, but not robotic; flavo?r for flavor OR flavour, but not flavours. Operators can be combined, e.g. an?emi* for anaemia OR anemia OR anaemic OR anemic
• Note that $ can be used as alternative to * to indicate truncation in Ovid.
• The question mark (?) represents any single character (rather than zero or one character in Ovid).
• The dollar sign ($) represents zero or one character (rather than as an alternative to the * truncation as used in Ovid).
• wom?n will search for women or woman
•  sawt??th will search for sawtooth and sawteeth

CINAHL (on EBSCO)

The  wildcard  is represented by a question mark  ?  or a hash [pound] sign  # .

• For example, type  ne?t  to find all citations containing  neat ,  nest  or  next  (net would not be retrieved).

# wildcard replaces 0 or 1 character.

For example, type colo#r to find all citations containing color or colour.

Phrase searching

When developing your search strategy you may wish to search using specific phrases rather than simply undertaking a search on individual keywords combined with OR. For example searching for "physical therapy" as a phrase in the title or abstract of articles  will limit your search significantly compared to searching for 'physical OR therapy'.

Most database platforms use double quotation marks "..." to ensure that keywords are searched as a phrase. (NB phrase searching is the default in databases on the Ovid platform).

Examples of phrase searching include:

"physical therapy"

"lung cancer"

"cognitive behavioural therapy"

Phrase searching can sometimes be too restrictive so do bear in mind that some databases also allow you to use proximity searching (see the box on this page).

The screenshots below show the difference in the number of results when using phrase searching compared to OR keyword searching.

Ovid Medline

• Double quotes “ ” will search for fuzzy phrases, i.e. terms which are similar. It will also search for both singular and plurals (with some exceptions). Symbols are ignored. Wildcards can be used. “heart-attack” will search for heart-attack, heart attack, heart attacks, and so on.
• Curly brackets { } will search for a specific phrase. It limits the search to only the specified character string, and symbols can be used. {heart-attack} will only search for heart-attack.
• Requires the use of double quotation marks " " to ensure words are searched as a phrase rather than the database doing an AND search with your terms.

Use NOT in a search to narrow your search and exclude keywords or subject headings from your search.

The NOT command allows you to search for terms that appear in the results of Search B (blue shaded area in the diagram above) but not in the results of Search A. It limits your results by excluding particular aspects of your initial search.

In most databases you have to type the NOT search line in as there is no button to select to combine using NOT. 

On both the  OvidSP  platform and NICE HDAS platform you simply type in the search line numbers around NOT, e.g. 1 NOT 2.  In CINAHL on the EBSCO platform you need to type in the relevant Search ID (see the column to the left of the Search Terms) around the NOT command, e.g. S1 NOT S2. Scopus  requires you to use 'AND NOT' to perform a NOT search.

Common uses of the NOT command in systematic reviews:

The Cochrane Handbook recommends using the NOT command as part of their search strategy to filter out Animal only studies (part of the RCT filter). This is a search optimised for the Medline database on the Ovid platform.

1) Your combined search terms

2) exp animals/ not humans.sh.

3) 1 not 2 

Search line 2 limits results to animal only studies and search line 3 then excludes these from the results when combined with your search terms.

See  See  Section 3.6 Search Filters  of 4.S1 Technical Supplement to Chapter 4 [of the  Cochrane Handbook  for Systematic Reviews of Interventions]: Searching for and selecting studies.

In the search above the results have been limited to articles which have been tagged with the focussed subject heading of Pregnancy (and narrower more specific terms as it has been exploded) and then animal only studies have been excluded. This double use of NOT (in search line 2 and 3) as opposed to just using the human limit (a tick box under the limits option) is to ensure articles which may have been tagged with both animal and human are returned as well as human only studies.

NOT searching can also be used to exclude particular publication types, e.g. letters or editorials. See the Using Filters tab for more information.

Use NOT with care as used incorrectly it may exclude results that you are interested in. For example, if you were interested in retrieving research on the use of antidepressants in treating depression and excluded the terms CBT OR cognitive behavioural therapy using NOT then you would also exclude any results which directly compared the two methods. If you do wish to use NOT to exclude specific keywords or subject headings then consider adapting the Cochrane method for excluding animal only studies using the double use of NOT.

• << Previous: Drawing up your search strategy
• Next: Using Filters >>
• Last Updated: Nov 14, 2023 3:22 PM
• URL: https://libguides.kcl.ac.uk/systematicreview

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Best Practice for Literature Searching

• Literature Search Best Practice
• What is literature searching?
• What are literature reviews?
• Hierarchies of evidence
• 1. Managing references
• 2. Defining your research question
• 3. Where to search
• 4. Search strategy
• 5. Screening results
• 6. Paper acquisition
• 7. Critical appraisal
• Further resources
• Training opportunities and videos
• Join FSTA student advisory board This link opens in a new window
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• Italian This link opens in a new window
• Persian This link opens in a new window
• Portuguese This link opens in a new window
• Spanish This link opens in a new window

Creating a search strategy

Once you have determined what your research question is and where you think you should search, you need to translate your question into a useable search. Doing so will:

• Make it much more likely that you will find the relevant research and minimise false hits (irrelevant results)
• Save you time in the long run
• Help you to stay objective throughout your searching and stick to your plan
• Help you replicate and update your results (where needed)
• Help future researchers build on your research.

If you need to explore a topic first, your search strategy can initially be quite loose. You can then revisit search terms and update your search strategy accordingly. Record your search strategy as you develop it and capture the final version for each place that you search.

Remember that information retrieval in the area of food is complex because of the broadness of the field and the way in which content is indexed.   As a result, there is often a high level of ‘noise’ when searching food topics in a database not designed for food content. Creating successful search strategies involves knowledge of a database, its scope, indexing and structure.

• Key concepts and meaningful terms
• Keywords or subject headings
• Alternative keywords
• Care in linking concepts correctly
• Regular evaluation of search results, to ensure that your search is focused
• A detailed record of your final strategy. You will need to re-run your search at the end of the review process to catch any new literature published since you began.
• Search matrix
• Populated matrix
• Revised matrix (after running searches)

• DOWNLOAD THE SEARCH MATRIX

Using a search matrix helps you brainstorm and collect words to include in your search. To populate a search matrix:

• Identify the main concepts in your search
• Run initial searches with your terms, scanning abstract and subject terms (sometimes called descriptors, keywords, MeSH headings, or thesaurus terms, depending on which database you are using) of relevant results for words to add to the matrix.
•  Explore a database thesaurus hierarchy for suitable broader and narrower terms.

Note : You don’t need to fill all of the boxes in a search matrix.

You will find that you need to do some searches as you experiment in running it and this will help you refine your search strategy. For the search on this example question:

• Some of the broader terms turned out to be too broad, introducing a host of irrelevant results about pork and chicken
• Some of the narrower terms were unnecessary, as any result containing “beef extract” is captured by just using the term beef.

See the revised matrix (after running searches) tab!

This revised matrix shows both adjustments made to terms, and how the terms are connected with Boolean operators.  Different forms of the same concept (the columns) are connected with OR, and each of the different concepts are connected with AND.   

Search tools

• Boolean operators
• Phrases and proximity searching
• Truncation and wildcards

Boolean operators tell a database or search engine how the terms you type are related to each other.  

Use OR to connect variations representing the same concept . In many search interfaces you will want to put your OR components inside parentheses like this: (safe OR “food safety” OR decontamination OR contamination OR disinfect*). These are now lumped together into a single food safety concept for your search.

Use AND to link different concepts. By typing (safe OR “food safety” OR decontamination OR contamination OR disinfect*) AND (beef OR “cattle carcasses”)—you are directing the database to display results containing both concepts.

NOT  eliminates all results containing a specific word.  Use NOT with caution. The term excluded might be used in a way you have not anticipated, and you will not know because you will not see the missing results.

Learn more about using Boolean operators:  Research Basics: Using Boolean Operators to Build a Search (ifis.org)

The search in the matrix above would look like this in a database:

("food safety"  OR  safety  OR  decontamination  OR  contamination  OR  disinfection)  AND  (thaw*  OR  defrost*  OR  "thawing medium")  AND  ("sensory quality attributes"  OR  "sensory perception"  OR  quality  OR  aroma  OR  appearance  OR  "eating quality"  OR  juiciness  OR  mouthfeel  OR  texture  OR  "mechanical properties"  OR  "sensory analysis"  OR  "rheological properties")  AND  (beef  OR  "cattle carcasses")

Thesaurus terms will help you capture variations in words and spellings that researchers might use to refer to the same concept, but you can and should also use other mechanisms utilised by databases to do the same. This is especially important for searches in databases where the thesaurus is not specialised for food science.

• Phrase searching , putting two or more words inside quotation marks like “food safety” will ensure that those words appear in a single field (i.e. title or abstract or subject heading) together as the phrase. Phrase searching can eliminate false hits where the words used separately do not represent the needed concept.
• Some databases allow you to use proximity searching to specify that words need to be near each other. For instance, if you type ripening N5 cheese you will get results with a maximum of five words between ripening and cheese .  You would get results containing cheese ripening as well as results containing ripening of semi-hard goat cheese .

Learn how to test if a phrase search or a proximity search is the better choice for your search:  Proximity searching, phrase searching, and Boolean AND: 3 techniques to focus your literature search (ifis.org)

Note : Proximity symbols vary from database to database. Some use N plus a number, while others use NEAR, ADJ or W. Always check the database help section to be sure that you are using the right symbols for that database .

Truncating a word mean typing the start of a word, followed by a symbol, usually an asterisk (*).  This symbol tells the database to return the letters you have typed followed either by no letters (if appropriate) or letters.  It is an easy way to capture a concept that might be expressed with a variety of endings. 

Sometimes you need to adjust where you truncate to avoid irrelevant results.  See the difference between results for nutri* or nutrit*

Inserting  wildcard  symbols into words covers spelling variations.  In some databases, typing  organi?ation  would return results with  organisation  or  organization , and  flavo#r  would bring back results with  flavor  or  flavour .  

Note : While the truncation symbol is often *, it can also be $ or !.   Wildcard symbols also vary from database to database. $ or ? are sometimes used. Always check the database help section to be sure that you are using the right symbols for that database.

In building a search you can combine all the tools available to you.    “Brewer* yeast”  , which uses both phrase searching and truncation, will bring back results for  brewer yeast ,  brewer’s yeast  and  brewers yeast , three variations which are all used in the literature.

Best Practice!

BEST PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION:   Always check a database's help section to be sure that you are using the correct  proximity, truncation or wildcard symbols for that database. 

Handsearching

It is good practice to supplement your database searches with handsearching . This is the process of manually looking through the table of contents of journals and conferences to find studies that your database searches missed. A related activity is looking through the reference lists of relevant articles found through database searches. There are three reasons why doing both these things is a good idea:

• If, through handsearching, you identify additional articles which are in the database you used but weren’t included in the results from your searches, you can look at the article records to consider if you need to adjust your search strategy. You may have omitted a useful variation of a concept from your search string.
• Even when your search string is excellent, some abstracts and records don’t contain terms that allow them to be easily identified in a search, but are relevant to your research.
• References might point to research published before the indexing began for the databases you are using.

For handsearching, target journals or conference proceedings that are clearly in the area of your topic and look through tables of contents. Sometimes valuable information within supplements or letters is not indexed within databases.

Academic libraries might subscribe to tools which can speed the process such as Zetoc  (which includes conference and journal contents) or Browzine (which only covers journals).  You can also see past and current issues’ tables of contents on a journal’s webpage.

Handsearching is a valuable but labour-intensive activity, so think carefully about where to invest your time.

Best practice!

BEST PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION:   Ask a colleague, lecturer, or librarian to review your search strategy. This can be very helpful, especially if you are new to a topic. It adds credibility to your literature search and will help ensure that you are running the best search possible.

BEST PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION:   Remember to save a detailed record of your searches so that you can run them shortly before you are ready to submit your project to see if any new relevant research has been published since you embarked on your project. A good way to do this is to document:

• Where the search was run
• The exact search
• The date it was run
• The number of results

Keeping all this information will make it easy to see if your search picks up new results when you run it again.

BEST PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION: If you are publishing your research, take note of journals appearing frequently in your search results for an indication of where to publish a research topic for good impact.

• << Previous: 3. Where to search
• Next: 5. Screening results >>
• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2023 2:17 PM
• URL: https://ifis.libguides.com/literature_search_best_practice

Advanced Searching Techniques: Truncation

• Advanced Searching Techniques

What is Truncation?

Truncation allows you to search various forms of a word by finding alternate endings.

The wildcard character is placed at the end of the first few letters of a search term or at the end of its root. A root is the base or most simplified form of a word.

For example, using the search terms " medical diagnosis amb* "  may find information containing "ambulatory", "amblyopia", "ambient" relating to medical or diagnosis resources.

Each database or database provider utilizes different wildcard characters and may have restrictions such as searching no less than 3 letters to achieve results.

Some databases regard stemming as a specialized form of truncation that finds related words of the root such as plural and grammatical forms, as well as different endings.

For example, using the search term " person# ", it may result in "people", as well as "person", "personalize", "personable", "persona", and "personal".

• << Previous: Wildcards
• Next: Proximity >>

Creating a Search Strategy: Wildcards and Truncation

• Understanding What's in a Database
• Define Your Topic
• Identify Keyword
• Wildcards and Truncation
• Use Boolean Operators
• Use Database Subject Headings
• Putting it all together
• EbscoHost Handouts
• Do you have a research question?

Using Wildcards and Truncation

Use the wildcard and truncation symbols to create searches where there are unknown characters, multiple spellings or various endings. Neither the wildcard nor the truncation symbol can be used as the first character in a search term.

​ ​The wildcard is represented by a question mark (?) or a pound/hash sign (#).

To use the (?) wildcard, enter your search terms and replace each unknown character with a ?. EBSCOhost  databases will find all citations of that word with the ? replaced by a letter.

For example, type ne?t  ​to find all citations containing neat, nest or next. EBSCOhost does not find net because the wildcard replaces a single character.

Note : When searching for a title that ends in a question mark, the symbol should be removed from the search in order to ensure results will be returned.

To use the # wildcard, enter your search terms, adding the # in places where an alternate spelling may contain an extra character. The database finds all citations of the word that appear with or without the extra character.

For example, type colo#r to retrieve results containing color or colour.

​Example: wom!n= woman, women

​ ​When using the pound/hash (#) wildcard, plurals and possessives of that term are not searched. For example, when running a search for the term colo#r, the terms "colors" and "colours" will not be searched (which they are by default when using the singular "color" or "colour" without a wildcard operator).

​Truncation is commonly represented by an asterisk(*).

To use truncation, enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an (*). The database will return all forms of that word.

Truncation is a technique that allows you to search various word endings simultaneously. 

​ ​ To use the truncation symbol enter the root of a word a and place the symbol at the end of the word.

Example 1 : child* will retrieve child , childs , children , childrens, childhood

Example 2 : comput* will retrieve computer and computing

​ Example 3 : genetic* will retrieve genetic , genetics , gentically

• << Previous: Identify Keyword
• Next: Use Boolean Operators >>
• Last Updated: Sep 19, 2023 7:31 AM
• URL: https://subr.libguides.com/c.php?g=726402

Resident’s Handbook of Medical Quality and Safety pp 151–161 Cite as

Tips for Effective Literature Searching

• Carrie Price 2  
• First Online: 12 April 2016

2005 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Literature searching presents challenges for the searcher. It can be difficult to know how to start, which search terms to use, which databases to select, and whether to be comprehensive or very selective. In this chapter, we will explore ways to optimize results for your research purposes. We compare controlled vocabulary in PubMed and Embase and review how to combine controlled vocabulary terms with keywords. We will discuss Boolean operators and how to increase or decrease recall and precision, how to build and combine concepts formulated from a PICO question (PICO = Population or Problem, Intervention, Comparison/Control, Outcomes), and how to exclude unwanted results. We will also see how field tags/field descriptors can change the search and how they aid in finding citations and publications from specific journals or specific authors. We note how to search the reference list or index terms of very relevant articles. We will review how using Advanced Search functions and filters within each database will allow the searcher to limit by date, by language, by publication type, and more. Finally, we will discuss how to save and export relevant results to a bibliographic manager for future use and collaboration with others.

• Bibliographic management
• Bibliographic manager
• Bibliographic managers
• Boolean operator
• Boolean operators
• Citation manager
• Citation managers
• Clinical decision
• Clinical decisions
• Controlled vocabulary
• Evidence appraisal
• Field descriptor
• Field descriptors
• Information management
• Information retrieval
• Information science
• Intervention
• Literature search
• Literature searching
• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
• Open access
• Sensitivity
• Specificity
• Structured abstract

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Price, C. (2016). Tips for Effective Literature Searching. In: Atanelov, L. (eds) Resident’s Handbook of Medical Quality and Safety. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24190-6_19

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Literature Search Basics

Develop a search strategy.

• Define your search
• Decide where to search

What is a search strategy

Advanced search tips.

• Track and save your search
• Class Recording: Writing an Effective Narrative Review
• A search strategy includes  a combination of keywords, subject headings, and limiters (language, date, publication type, etc.)
• A search strategy should be planned out and practiced before executing the final search in a database.
• A search strategy and search results should be documented throughout the searching process.

What is a search strategy?

A search strategy is an organized combination of keywords, phrases, subject headings, and limiters used to search a database.

Your search strategy will include:

• keywords 
• boolean operators
• variations of search terms (synonyms, suffixes)
• subject headings 

Your search strategy  may  include:

• truncation (where applicable)
• phrases (where applicable)
• limiters (date, language, age, publication type, etc.)

A search strategy usually requires several iterations. You will need to test the strategy along the way to ensure that you are finding relevant articles. It's also a good idea to review your search strategy with your co-authors. They may have ideas about terms or concepts you may have missed.

Additionally, each database you search is developed differently. You will need to adjust your strategy for each database your search.  For instance, Embase is a European database, many of the medical terms are slightly different than those used in MEDLINE and PubMed.

Choose search terms

Start by writing down as many terms as you can think of that relate to your question. You might try  cited reference searching  to find a few good articles that you can review for relevant terms.

Remember than most terms or  concepts can be expressed in different ways.  A few things to consider:

• synonyms: "cancer" may be referred to as "neoplasms", "tumors", or "malignancy"
• abbreviations: spell out the word instead of abbreviating
• generic vs. trade names of drugs

Search for the exact phrase

If you want words to appear next to each other in an exact phrase, use quotation marks, eg “self-esteem”.

Phrase searching decreases the number of results you get. Most databases allow you to search for phrases, but check the database guide if you are unsure.

Truncation and wildcards

Many databases use an asterisk (*) as their truncation symbol  to find various word endings like singulars and plurals.  Check the database help section if you are not sure which symbol to use. 

"Therap*"

retrieves: therapy, therapies, therapist or therapists.

Use a wildcard (?) to find different spellings like British and American spellings.

"Behavio?r" retrieves behaviour and behavior.

Searching with subject headings

Database subject headings are controlled vocabulary terms that a database uses to describe what an article is about.

Using appropriate subject headings enhances your search and will help you to find more results on your topic. This is because subject headings find articles according to their subject, even if the article does not use your chosen key words.

You should combine both subject headings and keywords in your search strategy for each of the concepts you identify. This is particularly important if you are undertaking a systematic review or an in-depth piece of work

Subject headings may vary between databases, so you need to investigate each database separately to find the subject headings they use. For example, for MEDLINE you can use MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and for Embase you can use the EMTREE thesaurus.

SEARCH TIP:  In Ovid databases, search for a known key paper by title, select the "complete reference" button to see which subject headings the database indexers have given that article, and consider adding relevant ones to your own search strategy.

Use Boolean logic to combine search terms

Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT) allow you to try different combinations of search terms or subject headings.

Databases often show Boolean operators as buttons or drop-down menus that you can click to combine your search terms or results.

The main Boolean operators are:

OR is used to find articles that mention  either  of the topics you search for.

AND is used to find articles that mention  both  of the searched topics.

NOT excludes a search term or concept. It should be used with caution as you may inadvertently exclude relevant references.

For example, searching for “self-esteem NOT eating disorders” finds articles that mention self-esteem but removes any articles that mention eating disorders.

Adjacency searching 

Use adjacency operators to search by phrase or with two or more words in relation to one another. A djacency searching commands differ among databases. Check the database help section if you are not sure which searching commands to use. 

In Ovid Medline

"breast ADJ3 cancer" finds the word breast within three words of cancer, in any order.

This includes breast cancer or cancer of the breast.

Cited Reference Searching

Cited reference searching is a method to find articles that have been cited by other publications. 

Use cited reference searching to:

• find keywords or terms you may need to include in your search strategy
• find pivotal papers the same or similar subject area
• find pivotal authors in the same or similar subject area
• track how a topic has developed over time

Cited reference searching is available through these tools:

• Web of Science
• GoogleScholar
• << Previous: Decide where to search
• Next: Track and save your search >>
• Last Updated: Nov 29, 2022 3:34 PM
• URL: https://mdanderson.libguides.com/literaturesearchbasics

• When to Use Truncation in Literature Search

Truncation is a technique used in keyword research and bibliographic search to reduce the number of variations that need to be searched for separately. Learn how to use it effectively with this guide.

In the context of bibliographic search, truncation is a technique that shortens a search term to show words that share a root word but have different endings. It is also known as wildcard search and helps reduce the number of variations that need to be searched for separately. Truncation, also called derivation, is a technique that expands the search to include various word endings and spellings. To use it, enter the root of a word and place the truncation symbol at the end.

Different databases use different truncation symbols, so it's important to check the “Help” information or “Search Tips” in the database for details on which symbol to use. Truncation is very useful when you know that one of your search terms has multiple endings, but all the variations represent basically the same idea. It allows you to search for a term and its spelling variants simultaneously, thus increasing the number of search results found. It also helps complete the search faster, since you don't have to type and search manually in every variation of the word.

However, it is important to understand the limitations of these algorithms and take matters into your own hands by truncating terms or using wildcards. This will significantly improve your searches. To truncate a search term, perform a keyword search in a database, but remove the end of the word and add an asterisk (*) at the end of the word.

• truncation symbol
• asterisk (*)

Charlotte Wilson

Friendly travel advocate. Freelance zombie scholar. Extreme web practitioner. Evil coffee buff. Professional beer practitioner.

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Lehigh University Libraries - Library Guides

Psyc 195: health psychology recitation fall 2023.

• Intro and Pre-Class Tutorial
• Research Cycle

In-Class Exercise

• Background Information
• Popular versus Scholarly Articles
• Search Tools
• Popular Articles
• Scholarly Articles
• Books and Ebooks
• Citing Sources
• Off-campus Access to Library Resources

For the in-class assignment, you will use a paper you have already read in the class, and that you found especially interesting, as a stepping stone to find two other articles . Ask any questions you might have.

After the class you will then do an exercise that is pretty much the same as the in-class exercise, with some differences. See next page of the guide titled "Assignment".

Open PsycINFO:

• PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Bibliographic database of scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. PsycINFO covers journals, books, reviews, and dissertations.

Using keywords or phrases that relate to the the article you read, c reate a search that draws on the basic techniques we talked about in class:

• Logical operators (AND, OR). Examples: cognitive and psychology; memory or mnemonic .
• Phrase searching. Use quotation marks to search for a phrase. Example: “health psychology”.
• Truncation. Example: psychol* 
• Nesting of search expressions using parentheses: (memor* or mnemonic) and "cognitive psychology". This will tell the system to process the "or" expression in the parentheses first, and then "and" in those results with a phrase search on cognitive psychology.

After running your search, look for "Source Types" to the left of the search results and select "Academic Journals":

Now look over the results and refine your search. For example, look over the search results to see if their titles or abstracts or subject terms suggest new keywords to tweak your search. (There are techniques for searching on the subject terms, but for this exercise just treat them as keywords like the other keywords you have used in the first step.)

Also, try out the "filters" that appear to the left of the search results.  You already used one above when you limited to academic journals. Here are examples:

The methodology of an article is important, so try that option.  For the definitions of the types of "methodology" an article can have, see the box at the bottom of this page.

In your search results, try to find an article that is a review article. To do so, when you look in methodology, limit to one of these two options: Literature Review or Systematic Review. 

If you cannot find a review article, select one article that looks interesting to you before moving on to Step 3.

Can you access the full text of the article through  Lehigh Links or from a link in the database, or do need to order it via ILLiad through Lehigh Links? (No need to order it for the assignment.) ILLiad is an interlibrary loan service. 

Use APA style to create a reference to the article you found.  To do so, when you are in the PsycINFO record for the item you want to reference, click on "cite" on the right, then look for the APA version of the citation; here's an example:

Note:  "citation generator" tools like the one immediately above can produce inaccuracies. No need to do it for this assignment, but for future reference note that you can check the references for accuracy by going to the  "Owl" style guide  or another guide for APA style, such as the ones in the Citing Sources page of this guide.  Also, for in-text citations, which point to the full citation at the end of a paper, see the citing sources page of this guide.

Finally, did other article(s) cite the article you cited in APA format?   Articles cite each other because they are related somehow in topic. So finding one good article can be a stepping stone to finding another related second article. 

Here's an example of an article that has been cited by 24 other items:

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German 4005: Resources for White Power Movements

• Starting Places
• Primary & Historical Sources
• Reference Shelf

Subject Librarian

Discover@MU

Discover@MU provides one search covering MOST (but not all) of the content the Libraries provide. Once you have search results on the screen, you can tailor these by using limits in the left sidebar or by using the drop-down menus in the search box to make your search more precise.

The default is to search just materials immediately available at MU, but untick the box in the left sidebar to extend your search to things we can get via interlibrary loan.

The results sort by relevancy (i.e. how often your search terms appear) but you can resort by date.

Remember basic search techniques:

• Provide synonyms or narrower/broader terms combined with OR: antisemitism OR "white power" OR "white supremacy"
• Narrow your focus by combining ideas/topics with AND: women AND (antisemitism OR "white power" OR "white supremacy")
• Truncate with an asterisk to retrieve variant endings: antisem* retrieves antisemitic, antisemitism, antisemites Remember to truncate to find British spellings as well as English.
• Subject heading searches give more focus and are usually in English. For other searches remember to add keywords in other languages.

Searching within Books

Library catalogs provide an inventory of books held by libraries. Typically they do not search or provide the full text of books or other materials online. Google Book Search or the Hathi Trust search the full text of books, but often can display only portions of the text due to copyright restrictions. Follow the "find in a library" links in these to locate the physical book in a library.

• Google Book Search Google Books contains the full text of books provided by libraries and publishers. Materials that are out of copyright (generally pre-1925) can be viewed online. For more recent books, Google Book Search functions as a detailed index. Books identified may be available at MU, via MOBIUS, or may be requested through ILL@MU.
• Hathi Trust The Hathi Trust Digital Library contains digital copies of more than 10 million volumes in over 400 languages, printed from 1500-present. Over 3 million volumes are in the public domain and can be viewed/printed/downloaded. Other volumes can be searched, but viewing is restricted. The Digital Library combines full-text searching with the traditional library catalog to facilitate sophisticated queries and easy browsing. MU users can also build private or shared collections within the Digital Library. [ more ]
• Internet Archive A large digital archive of books, recordings, web sites.
• Europeana Explore the museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections from over 150 institutions across Europe.

Databases NOT included in Discover@MU

• BDSL Online: Die Bibliographie der deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft The most comprehensive listing of books and articles about German language and literature, 1985-1995.
• DigiZeitschriften: Das Deutsche Digitale Zeitschriftenarchiv
• ZDB: Zeitschriftendatenbank This catalog lists periodicals, identifies online editions and indicates which libraries have specific print volumes/issues. It also provides background on the history of each title, showing related titles.

Organizations

Organizations or institutions monitoring ongoing issues or preserving the past are often good starting places for research.

• American Civil Liberties Union
• Anti-Defamation League
• American Jewish Committee
• European Jewish Congress
• European Network Against Racism
• FBI Hate Crimes page
• Human Rights Watch
• Jüdisches Museum Berlin
• Justice Department Civil Rights Division
• Justice Department Hate Crimes page
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Yad Vashem- The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
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• Last Updated: Nov 10, 2023 12:35 PM
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For a Hungry Book Critic, Every Word Is a Feast

By Alexandra Schwartz

It is a hazard to read on an empty stomach. What is it about words that makes things taste so delicious? I can still recall the twelfth-grade English class, held just before lunch, in which we were cruelly called upon to analyze, well, lunch: the sumptuous one described by Virginia Woolf at the start of “ A Room of One’s Own ,” involving soles in cream, partridges “with all their retinue of sauces and salads,” sprouts “foliated as rosebuds but more succulent,” and a pudding so spectacular that to “relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult.” I had never tasted partridge. I still have never tasted partridge. Described by Woolf, it is my favorite food.

Reading while hungry is not a predicament known to Dwight Garner, because, as he tells us in “ The Upstairs Delicatessen ,” his winning new book, he cannot read without also eating, and, as a book critic for the Times , he reads quite a bit. The association between these two sustaining pleasures began long ago, during his boyhood in West Virginia and Florida. Garner takes a good hard look in memory’s mirror and tells us what he sees: “a soft kid, inclined toward embonpoint, ‘husky’ in the department-store lingo, a brown-eyed boy with chafing thighs.” Riding his bicycle home from school beneath the blazing Gulf Coast sun, “sizzled crisp and pink with sweat,” he sounds fairly edible himself.

Garner’s early reading tastes were indiscriminate; the library kept him well stocked. His eating habits were necessarily narrower, dependent on the supplies his parents had in the kitchen. He liked pretzels, mayonnaise-and-cheese sandwiches, Hydrox cookies with milk, and potato chips. The bread was white; the drink was red, made from a mix. “Everyone wasn’t a sophisticate,” he writes. His father’s people were “coal miners and gunsmiths, all of them hunters.” Their freezer was full of venison. Fascinatingly, Garner’s paternal grandfather was a follower of Horace Fletcher, a.k.a. the Great Masticator, one of those freaky food influencers of the Victorian era, who advised chewing a meal until it turned to liquid in the mouth. Garner’s mother was not an enthusiastic cook—her cuisine was heavy on Kraft and Cool Whip—but, many years later, he remains devoted to the memory of her egg foo yong.

From these undistinguished origins arose Garner the gourmand. He loves to eat and to drink, to cook and be cooked for, to stay in and to go out. Some of his tastes, he feels, demand defending; he gives a few paragraphs over to the furor that erupted when, in 2012, he declared his love for the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. But his credentials are convincing. He belongs to something called “an offal club,” has slaughtered at least one rooster in his time, and suffers from gout. In a past life, he delivered pizza for Domino’s.

A really good eater, like a really good reader, must have two qualities in abundance: curiosity and capacity. Plainly, in the food department, Garner has both. When he lived in Garrison, New York, he indulged in an impressive ritual on his commute from the city: a Martini at Jimmy’s Corner, the legendary midtown boxing bar, followed by oysters at Grand Central Oyster Bar, and then, upon arrival at home, a steak dinner prepared by his wife, the writer Cree LeFavour, who was then working on her cookbook “ The New Steak .” One of the big subjects of Garner’s book is happiness, and much of his seems to be owed to LeFavour. She grew up in a family of adventurous restaurateurs. “In the kitchen, Cree and I are opposites,” he writes—she cooks by feel, he by recipe—and the same goes for them as eaters:

She’ll have the in-season fruit with yogurt; I’ll take the three-cheese omelet with home fries. She has never, to the best of my knowledge, eaten in a food court or on an airplane because it wouldn’t occur to her. Why not wait for something better? I smell the warm cookies in first class and can’t wait for my little tub of indistinct protein—is that a belly-button lint cutlet?—to arrive in 23D.

Needless to say, the relationship has thrived.

Garner is a good host; he doesn’t just talk about himself. Memoir, thoughts about food, and literary criticism are stacked, in “The Upstairs Delicatessen,” like the bright layers of a Venetian cookie, in chapters devoted to breakfast, lunch, drinking, and dinner, plus one on grocery shopping (Garner eschews the easy romance of the greenmarket for the frigid, fluorescent abundance of the American supermarket) and another on swimming and napping, two activities that provide a necessary break in his daily dining project. (One quibble: where is the chapter about cleaning up?) Garner’s literary cellar is vast, and he always has just the right quote or anecdote ready to decant. In “Breakfast,” for instance, we learn that Thomas Hardy’s favorite morning meal was a stew of parsley, onions, and bread that bore the unappetizing name of “kettle-broth,” and are given convincing evidence that “no writer has attended to mornings and their promise as closely as has Toni Morrison.” In “Lunch,” a riff on the place of hot dogs in American life skips from H. L. Mencken to Philip Roth, Audre Lorde, Larry McMurtry, and Vivian Gornick. One nice thing about Garner’s book is that he doesn’t just go for the classics. Younger or more recently published writers like Bryan Washington, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Anthony Veasna So all have a place at his table.

Reading Garner got me thinking about the literary food I have loved. There are the preposterously lavish feasts of Flaubert ’s “ Sentimental Education ,” like one that Frédéric, the novel’s hero, is treated to soon after his arrival in Paris: “He had ten sorts of mustard to choose from. He ate gazpacho, curry, ginger, Corsican blackbirds, Roman lasagne; he drank extraordinary wines, lip-fraoli, and Tokay.” On the other end of the spectrum is the earthy meal enjoyed by Aimée, the female con artist in Jean-Patrick Manchette’s noir novel “ Fatale ,” who celebrates the completion of a job by rubbing herself with stolen banknotes and eating a choucroute “which smelt like piss and sperm.” Then there is picky Mr. Woodhouse, father to Emma in Jane Austen ’s “ Emma ,” who feels that food was put on this Earth to kill him. “While his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to every thing,” Austen writes, “his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat.” Every so often, he makes an exception. “You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together,” he tells his daughter—a ghastly invitation, warmly extended.

One of the best-ever openings of a short story can be found in Grace Paley ’s “The Used-Boy Raisers,” in which Faith, the narrator, cooks breakfast for two men, her husband and her ex:

There were two husbands disappointed by eggs. I don’t like them that way either, I said. Make your own eggs. They sighed in unison.

Paley had a way with verbs. In the same story, Faith does not brew a pot of coffee but kindles it. Later, after the men have finally, thank God, left, she will pour some into a mug that says “MAMA” to enjoy a private moment with her thoughts. “How fortunate we are to be food-consuming animals,” Iris Murdoch wrote. And how fortunate, too, to be word-consuming ones, because reading, like eating, never ends. ♦

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Drs. Seulghee Lee and Federica Schoeman win Department Teacher of the Year Award

Professors honored for their pedagogical rigor, passion, and commitment to students in 2022!

This fall, the Department of English named two recipients of the Teacher of the Year Award. Assistant Professor Seulghee Lee and Associate Professor Federica Schoeman received the honor for their accomplishments in 2022.

Lee, a McCausland Fellow, specializes in the areas of African American Literature, Blackness / Anti-Blackness, AfroAsian Studies, and Racial Misandry Studies. One student in Lee’s Honor College course, entitled, “Afro-Asian Connections in American Culture,” extolled him as “so awesome. He is hilarious but also extremely knowledgeable and empathetic. He created such a comfortable classroom environment where I felt like I could express myself…the figurative classroom space was so unique, and I cherish it so much now.” And a student in his African American Feminist Theory course writes: “Not only does he try his best in helping us understand what we do not, but he is always open in to listening to what we think. Overall, he is one of the best professors I have had at the University... He makes you feel heard, he makes you want to learn more, and he makes you want to understand more.” Lee’s recent courses include “Introduction to African American Studies,” “Asian American Culture in the Twenty-First Century,” and the graduate seminar “Racial Misandry in American Culture.”

Schoeman’s specializations include Holocaust Studies, Jewish Fiction, Autobiographies and Film, Jewish Literature and Thought, Jewish Diaspora, and Women's Memoirs. Students of her course “Witnessing, Remembering, Fictionalizing: The Holocaust in Words and Images” praise her extensively. One student writes, “Dr. Schoeman is hands down one of the best professors I have had the pleasure of taking at USC. She is extremely caring, always accessible, and made this course so amazing.” Another observes, “This class came from a different perspective than usual history classes, and it changed my perspective completely.” And one student writes, “Professor Schoeman is awesome. I absolutely loved her and all that she did for this class and in this class. She holds her students accountable but is also graceful and eager to learn from us. I love how she was so excited to hear what we had to say about the material she was already familiar with.”

Both Lee and Schoeman put a great deal of care and thought into their pedagogy. When asked to comment on his award, Lee said:

It is humbling to receive this recognition in the context of working alongside so many committed and respected teachers in the English department. Last year was a very rewarding span of work in my classroom: I got to teach two of my favorite rotation courses, Black Feminist Theory and African American Literature Since 1903, as well as my Honors College seminar, AfroAsian Connections in American Culture, so I was immersed all year in some of my most beloved figures, texts, and concepts. I also had the chance to fold in some of the great academic and cultural programming going on that year—including the Elizabeth Catlett exhibition at the Columbia Museum of Art, as well as campus and community events with Angela Davis, Fred Moten, and Cornel West — to bring to life and to complement the ideas we were developing together in the classroom. That year I also began directing two doctoral students, both committed to the study of Black literature and culture, so it has been wonderful to work closely with the next generation of teachers who share my sense of the vocational task of contributing to and passing on this work.

And in response to the same question, Schoeman said,

In 2022, I taught my Holocaust course twice and Great Books of the Western World (Part II). It is funny how these two courses are quite complementary: in a way, the texts I chose for Great Books illustrate the historical path that brought the western world from the French Enlightenment to World War II, which is the theme of the Holocaust class, of course. Students respond really well to these texts and to my lectures about the historical context, spanning almost 160 years, with which our authors are in constant dialogue. The students’ eyes are open to the fact that intellectuals and writers constantly engage with their history and tell us so much about not only what was but also where we, as a collective society, may be heading. The discussions in class among students are wonderful!  Very intense and often deeply moving. I feel so lucky, as their professor, to witness their growth as independent thinkers and critical readers!

The English department and its students are fortunate indeed to have such committed scholars whose pedagogical brilliance is so inspiring.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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Guest Essay

What I Read to My Son When the World Is on Fire

By Miriam Udel

Dr. Udel is a professor of Yiddish language, literature and culture at Emory University.

Last May, my husband and I invited a Palestinian friend for Shabbat dinner, and when he asked what to bring, I requested a book about his homeland for our 7-year-old son. Because this friend is lavishly generous and wasn’t sure of our child’s reading level, he showed up with a gift bag of titles about Palestinian children and their experiences, ranging from picture books to a four-volume series of middle-grade novels.

In the wake of the devastating atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the subsequent weeks of violence in Gaza, I have found myself reaching for those books.

Children’s books, which present subtle truths in simple terms, offer a valuable tool in retaining our moral bearings, especially amid a maelstrom of grief and rage. These books, in their simplicity and brevity, can grant polarized communities access to each other’s stories, reminding us of our shared humanity and common interest in finding a way toward peaceful coexistence.

In the books I read with my son, I saw the Palestinian children’s authors of today doing something I recognize from my research on the Yiddish children’s literature of the previous century: striving to help children make sense of the world they stand to inherit while writing a better world into being.

The canon of Yiddish literature that I’ve studied draws on books and periodicals created from 1900 to 1970 on four continents under a range of political auspices — including socialism, communism, labor Zionism and just plain Yiddishism — by an array of educators, high-culture authors and specialized children’s writers. These writers built exciting fictive worlds for their readers to escape to and aspire to — while urging them to endure and redress persistent, real-world social problems, such as income inequality and perennial antisemitic violence.

The Yiddish writers of a century ago described magical Sabbaths and capricious rulers, the distinctive joys and sorrows that inflected Ashkenazi Jewish history and identity, without losing sight of ice skating and schoolroom dramas — in other words, the sorts of frolics and fears that pertain to childhood all over.

Yiddish stories emphasize the ways children can act ethically and carry their culture forward. Instead of reinforcing conventional nationalism, these works followed the general tendency of Yiddish literature, art and film to explore how culture might define a nation. Keenly interested in faraway civilizations, Yiddish children’s literature sought to offer its readers what the educator Emily Style calls window and mirror : reflections of their own experiences and apertures onto the experiences of others. Over decades and across oceans, these writers counted on their stories to turn vilde khayes (the ungovernable “wild things” that Maurice Sendak imported into the English lexicon) into specimens of ethical humanity capable of mitlayd (compassion, literally, “suffering with”).

Narrative fiction is an exceptionally potent means for conveying others’ suffering and cultivating empathy, and children’s literature is no exception; adults who fail to appreciate the seriousness of this literary enterprise, or worse, attempt to restrict or ban it, trivialize the processes whereby children learn to think and feel — and so alienate themselves from influencing the future.

An entire generation of Israelis and Palestinians, as well as those abroad who care about their fate, are now at risk of further losing faith in the possibility of peace. At this critical moment, children’s books can help in two important ways: First, they establish a realm where we can bear witness to one another’s pain, fear and joy. In “ Sitti’s Secrets ” by Naomi Shihab Nye — a gentle, poetic evocation of a Palestinian American girl’s visit to her grandmother and cousins who live “on the other side of the earth” — the sustained note of exilic longing is tempered by joyful connection. In Hannah Moushabeck’s “ Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine ,” a Palestinian father refashions memories of his youth in the Old City of Jerusalem into bedtime stories for his daughters. Amahl Bishara’s 2005 “ The Boy and the Wall ” is set closer geographically to the conflict and offers a child’s-eye view of the separation barrier erected in the West Bank. A colorful book in English and Arabic, it was created with children living in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem and, naturally, reflects their confusion and pain at life under unending occupation — and communicates that to its readers.

These are titles I want my own child exposed to. And I want non-Jewish families to read books that represent our full humanity, in all our particular Jewish vulnerability and joy. As the cultural critic Marjorie Ingall has noted , Holocaust themes are overrepresented among titles about Jews from American mainstream publishers, while many Jewish children’s authors and librarians feel that everyday Jewish life in Israel is underrepresented . I’d like for American readers to have broader access to depictions of Jewish flourishing, including in Israel, as in Janice Hechter’s “ Adventure Girl: Dabi Digs in Israel .” To be seen in our wholeness and complexity and to see others in the same way — this is part of what these books can offer.

But children’s literature fosters more than just basic awareness of the similarities and differences in our shared humanity: It conjures a realm where we can imagine — together — something better than what is. “ Daniel and Ismail ” by Juan Pablo Iglesias is pitched to children ages 3 to 6 and tells the story of two boys, one Palestinian and one Jewish, who overcome their parents’ objections to form a friendship on the soccer field. The plot subtly acknowledges that a new generation will have to figure out how to make peace and that it is possible for children to lead us.

The books are plentiful and inviting. They were created to write a better world into being: Now we must use them to read a better world into being. While these tales are important for the sake of young readers, they are just as critical for us adults to share. Those of us watching the news with a sense of despair need these stories, both their gentleness and their moral fierceness. The reasons for anguish pile up in body bags. Our souls are crushed by the seeming impossibility of democratic majorities to hold their leaders to account — to demand dignity, safety and peace for all throughout the region.

Children’s literature can’t solve these problems. But it creates an arena in which to dream, an essential redoubt for rational hope. And without hope, nothing good will come.

Miriam Udel, a professor of Yiddish culture and literature, is the director of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies at Emory University and is the editor of “Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature.”

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