Finding the evidence: planning a search

So, you have your assignment title – and the deadline that goes with it, what next?


You need to find information that will help you write that assignment. Start doing this without some kind of plan and you risk hours of looking without much success. So you need to make a plan.

1. Begin with your title

Look at your title and pick out the key words that you need to search for in order to answer the question. Here’s an example:

How effective is cognitive behaviour therapy in reducing chronic pain in adults

Words to include: Cognitive behaviour therapy, Chronic pain, adults


Words to ignore: effective, reducing


2. Find the alternatives

Once you have identified words in the title, consider alternatives or related terms. For example acronyms or abbreviations for a term; American / English spelling variations; alternative ways of describing a term (synonyms); related topics. The more variations you have to include in your search the greater chance you have of finding the material you need.



3. Get organised

There are various ways you can organise your thoughts and make sure you have considered all the options. You may like to draw a spider diagram with your question / title in the middle and all the terms / topics / sub-questions you can think of around the outside.

A technique many people use is PICO. This helps you break your topic down under 4 key headings, which can help you understand what you are searching for, and help you define your keywords. The PICO headings are: population / patient / problem; Intervention; Control / comparison / Outcome. For example:

P = adults / adult / specific age groups e.g older adults

I = cognitive behaviour therapy / cbt / psychotherapy / cognitive therapy / cognitive treatment / behavioural therapy

C = drugs / drug therapy / pain killers / specific drugs

O = pain reduction / pain control / pain management / pain assessment / pain level / chronic pain / suffering / specify type of pain e.g. low back pain



4. Link it all together

Once you feel you have identified all the relevant terms you are nearly ready to start searching, however once you begin to enter terms into a database you will need to connect them together. Boolean Operators are used to connect terms in a search.

“OR” is used to connect related terms (e.g. cognitive behaviour therapy OR cbt). This allows you to include your related terms in a search and broadens out the search.

“AND” is used to connect different terms (e.g. cognitive behaviour therapy AND chronic pain). This allows you to make your search specific and cuts out any results which only covers one of your terms.

“NOT” is used to exclude a particular aspect of a topic (e.g pain reduction NOT drugs).



So your final search might look something like:

adults OR adult OR older adults

AND

cognitive behaviour therapy OR cbt OR psychotherapy OR cognitive therapy OR cognitive treatment OR behavioural therapy

AND

pain reduction OR pain control OR pain management OR pain assessment OR pain level OR chronic pain OR suffering



5. Still not sure?

If you want some further advice on planning a search or how to search specific databases then contact your Academic Support Librarian – you can find our contact details on the About Us page of this blog.