In this section we have taken the sample search topic used in the section planning your search strategy. See below a recorded search of two databases using the free-text terms and subject terms identified at the planning stage.
We identified the terms (or keywords) following a preliminary search of the literature. We noted any subject headings listed in the article record, we read some abstracts and conducted a search of the database thesaurus/index of terms where this was available. We used the asterisk symbol * to truncate some terms and “quotations marks” for terms we wanted to appear together.
Database search screens can vary in design and functionality depending on the database platform or database used. You will see how we apply our search using the two databases and make use of some similar as well as unique functionality.
The first database example is Scopus, a multi-disciplinary citation database. We searched using all the terms we identified* and used the default fields title/keywords/abstracts. Controlled terms have been added to records in Scopus. These are automatically searched when you search using your free text terms. It doesn’t have the option to ‘look up’ indexed terms in the first instance. See table below.
*Note: we’re searching all the terms (free text terms and subject/index terms) as free text terms in Scopus
The second example is PsycInfo, a discipline specific database covering the field of psychology and related disciplines. In this search, we search using the controlled terms identified using the thesaurus of index terms in addition to searching for these terms as free text terms alongside all the other free text terms we identified as we did in the Scopus search.
