Guides: Health Sciences Literature Searching Basics: Video tutorials on searching

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.

Building a search in Ovid

Searching Ovid Medline (2024 Update)

Health Sciences Library, McMaster University. (2024, March 1). Searching Ovid Medline (2024 update) [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iolA2wsY0rA

1:06 Search one database at a time on Ovid to identify database-specific subject headings (Note: Different institutions have access to different databases/segments—at McGill, we use Ovid MEDLINE ALL)

1:37 Identify your concepts

2:38 Enter concepts one at a time to identify MeSH terms, e.g., type in “circumcision” if using our example

Goes over difference between subject headings (e.g., MeSH) and keywords (will cover keyword searching later)

4:00 What are “focus” and “explode” and when should you use them?

5:14 Avoid using subheadings in comprehensive searching

5:35 What the MeSH term will look like when added to your search history, and how it will appear in the complete reference

Building a search in PubMed

PubMed Subject Search: How It Works

National Library of Medicine. (2023, December 15). PubMed Subject Search: How It Works [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PhCRjQDfeI

Building a search in CINAHL

Three tips to make CINAHL work for you

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Content Authors

Please note: While this guide is managed by the Schulich Librarians, the contents of the guide were developed in collaboration with Yvon-Tani Jackson, MISt student (2026).