SLP 696 Research Methods Applied & Basic

Search Strategy for Literature Review

A literature review is a critical account of the methodologies and data on your research topic by accredited researchers in the field.  The following is a list of search techniques to guide the process

• Identify keywords associated with your topic
  • Test your keywords by using them in the recommended databases
  • Are your keywords included in the titles?
  • If your keywords are not included in the titles, search MeSH to determine what keyword(s) to use
  • Also, identify author supplied keywords in the relevant articles you find 

• Run keywords search for relevant publications
  • Find recommended databases in the Databases tab 
  • Literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, journal articles or books

• Bibliography / References List searches 
  • scan references sections of these materials to find additional materials
    • Set up citation alerts

• Identify key journals 
  • scan table of contents from the past 3-5 years for material
    • Set-up Table of Contents Alerts and/or Journal & Book Series Alerts 

• Identify major authors
  • Set-up citation alerts (See Citation Alerts tab)
  • Use Citation linking tools and perform Cited reference searches to locate the accredited researchers (see Databases tab to learn more)

• Map the literature
  • Organize literature according to key elements of the research studies such as methodology
    • Use Mendeley to organize sources/materials into folder/sub-folders