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Creating Your Search Strategy

Strategic searching can give you better results and help tune out undesired literature citations. Suggestions to consider when creating your search strategy are:

Analyze your protocol (Questions to start your search);
Consider each major question as a separate search string-- Don’t be afraid to break your protocol down into multiple searches/search strings; so as to address each question;
Determine which databases and/or other resources (webpages, journal, books, etc.) are best for your specific search topic;
Identify keywords/ search terms for your search; and
Think of similar terms (synonyms) that might also be used to describe these concepts.