OT Capstone Project

As you become more comfortable with searching, you may want to start building more complex search strategies. 

This can allow you take more control over the search and have the database do more precisely what you want it to do.  This can be especially important when creating comprehensive searches for projects like systematic or scoping reviews.

The following tools are available in most databases, but how they behave in each system may be slightly different.  Always check the database's help screen for more details.

What is Truncation?

Truncation is a tool that is available in many databases.  It allows you to easily search for all the different forms of a given root-word by adding the truncation symbol: * (asterisk)

For example, a search for nurs* would retrieve articles that include the terms nurse, nurses, and nursing.

Things to Keep in Mind With Truncation

Think carefully about where you are cutting your word.  You want it to be broad enough to capture all the relevant forms of the word, but also not so broad that it floods your results with irrelevant items.

What are the forms you are hoping to capture?  You should have a rough list in your head of what you are expecting to find with the truncated term.

• If you are truncating a verb that ends in -e, remove it in order to capture the -ing form.  For example, smok*
• Are there forms you do not want to capture?  For example, if you truncate child* to retrieve child, children, and childhood, you will also capture articles talking about childbirth, childless, childish, and childbearing.  In this case, it might make more sense to spell out all the forms that you want.
• Some databases require that you have more than 3 letters in order to use truncation.  So, if you want to search for articles about cerebrovascular accidents and use the abbreviation of CVA, you will need to spell out the plural: cva OR cvas

What are Field Tags?

Many databases default to searching in All Fields, or a combination of many fields.  If you would like to specify a certain field(s) to be searched instead, you can use field tags to tell the database what you want.

For example, you can choose to only search in the subject heading field or the Title/Abstract fields.

Each database will have its own custom field tags that can be used.  Always check the database's help files to find out what is available.

Things to Keep in Mind With Field Tags

• In PubMed, the database understands terms searched with field tags to have implied quotation marks around them. 
  • For example, occupational therapy[tw] = "occupational therapy"[tw]. 
  • If you want your terms to be able to be split up, you would want to tag each of them individually (occupational[tw] AND therapy[tw]).
• In Embase, they allow you to build compound field searches.  For example, searching 'occupational therapy':ti,ab,kw,de looks in the title, abstract, keyword, and description fields.  But you as the searcher get to decide which fields to include.
• In CINAHL, it is often unnecessary to use field tags, unless you are trying to use the CINAHL Subject Heading explosion feature.  Otherwise, searching in their default fields is usually sufficient.

What is Phrase Searching?

If you are using a multi-word search term in your search, such as occupational therapy, you will want to think about how important it is that they stay together in order to still be relevant. 

If you want the terms to stay together and in the order you put them into the search box, you can put them into quotation marks to search them as a phrase.

For example, if you are looking for articles about the young adult population, you would probably want the terms young and adult to stay together.  If they get split apart, they start to become too broad to be relevant.

However, sometimes it may be better to allow the terms to be split up.  For example, breast cancer could also be described as cancer of the breast or breast and ovarian cancer.

Things to Keep in Mind With Phrase Searching

• Think carefully about how your terms might realistically appear in the literature.  Approach this step with an open mind.
  • Avoid long and complex phrases that may not occur exactly as you entered them very often.  This will make your search too narrow, and you will potentially miss relevant articles.  Instead, try to use the simplest phrase possible that is still relevant.
  • You also do not necessarily want to allow all of your search terms to be split apart, as some may need to stay together to stay relevant.
• Some databases (but not PubMed) also allow the use of Proximity Operators.  These are tools that let you to tell the database that the terms need to appear within a certain number of spaces from each other.  This provides a bit more flexibility than a traditional quoted phrase.