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Health Sciences Literature Searching Basics

Useful tips for research

Preparing for a systematic search

Your research project may include a systematic review, scoping review, or other knowledge synthesis. These reviews have their own methodologies and normally involve systematically searching the literature in a thorough, transparent, and reproducible way. You will want to formulate a review question when conducting such reviews.

Systematic searching can also be used as a technique to search the literature in general.

Tutorials on searching

These tutorials will help you explore subject headings, subheadings, keywords, and search strategy refinement in more detail.

Ovid MEDLINE

Ovid MEDLINE part 1 - Starting your search (using subject headings)

Health Sciences Library, McMaster University. (2020, January 7). OVID Medline - Part 1 - Starting Your Search [Video file]. Retrieved from https://hslmcmaster.libguides.com/tutorials/ovid 

OVID Medline - Part 2 - Refining your search (using keywords, operators, and limits)

Health Sciences Library, McMaster University. (2014, October 16). OVID Medline - Part 2 - Refining Your Search [Video file]. Retrieved from https://hslmcmaster.libguides.com/tutorials/ovid

PubMed

PubMed: Building a search

Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins University. (2020 June 30). PubMed: Building a Search [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGYFDrORpzA

Additional tutorials:

CINAHL

CINAHL Part 1: Starting your search

Health Sciences Library, McMaster University. (2020, January 7). CINAHL Part 1 - Starting Your Search [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLL76nwhYUY

CINAHL Part 2 - Refining your search

Health Sciences Library, McMaster University. (2014, May 15). CINAHL Part 2 - Refining Your Search [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kszOLxyI6g&feature=youtu.be

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