Finding Resources for your

Public Health - Literature Review

Research Strategy

1. State your research question…..

• Simply state what it is you want to find out

(Ex:) Does TV violence cause kids to act violently toward others?

**You will use your research question to determinehow you are going to search the library databases.

Research Strategy

2. Select key concepts…

(Ex:) Does TV violence cause kids to act violently toward others?• The key concepts are TV, violence & kids

**Do not select common words that would be in any article

TV violence kids

Research Strategy

3. Identify synonyms…

Try to use words that ‘scholars’ would use

TV

OR

Television

Violence

OR

Hostility

OR

Aggression

Kids

OR

Children

OR

Youth

Research Strategy

4. Truncate appropriate words…

• Kids OR Children OR Youthchild* = child, child’s, children, children's

• TV OR Televisiontelevis* = televise, televised, televising, television

Research Strategy

5. Select the title field for the search….

• The default search for most search boxes is a keyword search – so it looks for these words to be anywhere in the article.

• Choose the [Title] field option to really narrow down your search

EbscoA great place to start is with Ebsco.Click [Choose Databases] to add the following additional databases:

Biomedical Reference Collection: CINAHL Plus with Full Text: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews: Cochrane Methodology Register: Database of Abstracts and Reviews Health Technology Assessments: MEDLINE: NHS Economic Evaluation Database: Nursing & Allied Health Collection:

* Limit your search to “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals”

Web of Knowledge

Lemmatization is turned on by default (finds alternative forms of the search term, ex: tooth and teethDoes not have a Peer-Reviewed limiter

**Ability to search and sort results by Times Cited

OvidLog into OvidSP either by using the entry in the HPD Database List OR by clicking on the OVID option in the drop down menu at the top of our homepage

Next Step…..

Locating the full-text See the “Locating the full-text”

presentation for detailed instructions.