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Searching PubMed: Literature Reviews
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Section Objective
What is a literature review, clearly stated research question, search terms, searching worksheets, boolean and / or.
The content in the Literature Review section defines the literature review purpose and process, explains using the PICO format to ask a clear research question, and demonstrates how to evaluate and modify search results to improve the accuracy of the retrieval.
A literature review seeks to identify, analyze and summarize the published research literature about a specific topic. Literature reviews are assigned as course projects; included as the introductory part of master's and PhD theses; and are conducted before undertaking any new scientific research project.
The purpose of a literature review is to establish what is currently known about a specific topic and to evaluate the strength of the evidence upon which that knowledge is based. A review of a clinical topic may identify implications for clinical practice. Literature reviews also identify areas of a topic that need further research.
A systematic review is a literature review that follows a rigorous process to find all of the research conducted on a topic and then critically appraises the research methods of the highest quality reports. These reviews track and report their search and appraisal methods in addition to providing a summary of the knowledge established by the appraised research.
The UNC Writing Center provides a nice summary of what to consider when writing a literature review for a class assignment. The online book, Doing a literature review in health and social care : a practical guide (2010), is a good resource for more information on this topic.
Obviously, the quality of the search process will determine the quality of all literature reviews. Anyone undertaking a literature review on a new topic would benefit from meeting with a librarian to discuss search strategies. A consultaiton with a librarian is strongly recommended for anyone undertaking a systematic review.
Use the email form on our Ask a Librarian page to arrange a meeting with a librarian.
The first step to a successful literature review search is to state your research question as clearly as possible.
It is important to:
- be as specific as possible
- include all aspects of your question
Clinical and social science questions often have these aspects (PICO):
- People/population/problem (What are the characteristics of the population? What is the condition or disease?)
- Intervention (What do you want to do with this patient? i.e. treat, diagnose)
- Comparisons [not always included] (What is the alternative to this intervention? i.e. placebo, different drug, surgery)
- Outcomes (What are the relevant outcomes? i.e. morbidity, death, complications)
If the PICO model does not fit your question, try to use other ways to help be sure to articulate all parts of your question. Perhaps asking yourself Who, What, Why, How will help.
Example Question: Is acupuncture as effective of a therapy as triptans in the treament of adult migraine?
Note that this question fits the PICO model.
- Population: Adults with migraines
- Intervention: Acupuncture
- Comparison: Triptans/tryptamines
- Outcome: Fewer Headache days, Fewer migraines
A literature review search is an iterative process. Your goal is to find all of the articles that are pertinent to your subject. Successful searching requires you to think about the complexity of language. You need to match the words you use in your search to the words used by article authors and database indexers. A thorough PubMed search must identify the author words likely to be in the title and abstract or the indexer's selected MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) Terms.
Start by doing a preliminary search using the words from the key parts of your research question.
Step #1: Initial Search
Enter the key concepts from your research question combined with the Boolean operator AND. PubMed does automatically combine your terms with AND. However, it can be easier to modify your search if you start by including the Boolean operators.
migraine AND acupuncture AND tryptamines
The search retrieves a number of relevant article records, but probably not everything on the topic.
Step #2: Evaluate Results
Use the Display Settings drop down in the upper left hand corner of the results page to change to Abstract display.
Review the results and move articles that are directly related to your topic to the Clipboard .
Go to the Clipboard to examine the language in the articles that are directly related to your topic.
- look for words in the titles and abstracts of these pertinent articles that differ from the words you used
- look for relevant MeSH terms in the list linked at the bottom of each article
The following two articles were selected from the search results and placed on the Clipboard.
Here are word differences to consider:
- Initial search used acupuncture. MeSH Terms use Acupuncture therapy.
- Initial search used migraine. Related word from MeSH Terms is Migraine without Aura and Migraine Disorders.
- Initial search used tryptamines. Article title uses sumatriptan. Related word from MeSH is Sumatriptan or Tryptamines.
With this knowledge you can reformulate your search to expand your retrieval, adding synonyms for all concepts except for manual and plaque.
#3 Revise Search
Use the Boolean OR operator to group synonyms together and use parentheses around the OR groups so they will be searched properly. See the image below to review the difference between Boolean OR / Boolean AND.
Here is what the new search looks like:
(migraine OR migraine disorders) AND (acupuncture OR acupuncture therapy) AND (tryptamines OR sumatriptan)
- Search Worksheet Example: Acupuncture vs. Triptans for Migraine
- Search Worksheet
- << Previous: My NCBI Accounts
- Last Updated: Dec 19, 2023 3:00 PM
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Literature Searching
In this guide.
- Introduction
- Steps for searching the literature in PubMed
- Step 1 - Formulate a search question
- Step 2- Identify primary concepts and gather synonyms
- Step 3 - Locate subject headings (MeSH)
- Step 4 - Combine concepts using Boolean operators
- Step 5 - Refine search terms and search in PubMed
- Step 6 - Apply limits
Students and researchers in the health sciences are often required to conduct literature searches for a number of reasons including identifying appropriate studies and methods to include in a literature review manuscript. Understanding the basics of database searching can allow you to effectively and efficiently find the information you need. This guide takes you through the process of developing an advanced, robust literature search in PubMed .
While the guide is based on searching in the PubMed database, the strategies can be applied appropriately to other databases, such as Embase , CINAHL , PsycINFO , etc. (see search syntax for more information on search translation). For more information on searching in other databases, attend Lane's Literature Reviews Beyond PubMed: Crafting Effective Searches in Other Databases course.
If you're interested in conducting a systematic review, please visit Introduction to Systematic Reviews .
Research Services
- Literature Searches
- Data Service
- Research Metrics Service
- Authoring and Publishing Support
Literature or reviews of a systematic nature is a value-added service available for current members of the Stanford Medicine community. To qualify for the service, the project lead and point-of-contact to Lane must be a Stanford affiliate.
Lane Medical Library staff can help you with your search strategy creation, collaborate on systematic reviews and other knowledge syntheses, provide guidance on documentation, processes, and tools, among others. Reviews or projects the team can help you with include but are not limited to:
- Systematic Review
- Meta-Analysis
- Literature Review for Grant Application
- Thesis or Dissertation
- Course Assignment
- Scoping Review
- Book Chapter
- Thesis Report
If you are interested in collaborating with a Lane Medical Librarian on a review project, please submit a literature search request .
Data management and sharing is a component of Open Science, which aims to make scientific research more transparent and accessible. Proper data management and sharing benefit you as an individual and the research community as a whole. Lane's data service provides:
- Best practices related to data management and sharing
- Assistance in complying with requirements related to the management and sharing of research data (e.g. from a publisher or funder)
- Consultations related to research data management, data security, data publishing, data curation, and long-term preservation
- Workshops and classes related to best practices in data management and sharing
For more information, visit the Data Management and Sharing guide or contact data librarian John Borghi ([email protected]).
Research metrics measure the impact of a scholar, article, book, journal, or research institution. Metrics can be informed through different approaches, such as citation counts, that can add to a broader understanding of impact. Lane's research metrics service assists with:
- Understanding, measuring and using bibliometrics and other statistical analysis of publications
- Using alternative metrics (also known as altmetrics)
- Common tools for assessing research impact
For more information on research metrics, visit the Research Impact guide or contact Research Communications Librarian Lily Ren ([email protected]).
Lane Librarians can help you with the authoring and publishing of your manuscript such as:
- Learn about unique author identifiers and how to create an ORCID ID
- How to find journals relevant to areas of research/interest for possible submission
- How to find journal impact factors
- Help find instructions for authors
- Explore alternate publishing models including open access journals
- How to verify citations
We also provide discounted Open Access author processing fees. For more information, visit our Understanding Open Access guide.
- Next: Steps for searching the literature in PubMed >>
- Last Updated: Jan 9, 2024 10:30 AM
- URL: https://laneguides.stanford.edu/LitSearch
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- CAREER FEATURE
- 04 December 2020
- Correction 09 December 2020
How to write a superb literature review
Andy Tay is a freelance writer based in Singapore.
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Literature reviews are important resources for scientists. They provide historical context for a field while offering opinions on its future trajectory. Creating them can provide inspiration for one’s own research, as well as some practice in writing. But few scientists are trained in how to write a review — or in what constitutes an excellent one. Even picking the appropriate software to use can be an involved decision (see ‘Tools and techniques’). So Nature asked editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews for their tips.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03422-x
Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Updates & Corrections
Correction 09 December 2020 : An earlier version of the tables in this article included some incorrect details about the programs Zotero, Endnote and Manubot. These have now been corrected.
Hsing, I.-M., Xu, Y. & Zhao, W. Electroanalysis 19 , 755–768 (2007).
Article Google Scholar
Ledesma, H. A. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 14 , 645–657 (2019).
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Brahlek, M., Koirala, N., Bansal, N. & Oh, S. Solid State Commun. 215–216 , 54–62 (2015).
Choi, Y. & Lee, S. Y. Nature Rev. Chem . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-020-00221-w (2020).
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Literature search using PubMed: an essential tool for practicing evidence- based medicine
Affiliation.
- 1 Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA.
- PMID: 16944614
Efficient literature search is essential to the practice of Evidence-Based Medicine. PubMed provides free access to one of the largest searchable biomedical databases. Efficient literature search using PubMed requires a good understanding of the available search strategies and tools. In this article we present a step-by-step approach for performing literature search using PubMed. Several PubMed tools including 'Single Citation Matcher', 'Clinical Queries', 'Clipboard', 'Field Tags', and 'Cubby' are highlighted using case based scenarios.
Publication types
- Case Reports
- Abstracting and Indexing
- Database Management Systems
- Evidence-Based Medicine*
- Information Storage and Retrieval / methods*
- Medical Subject Headings*
- Middle Aged
- User-Computer Interface
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
A literature review search is an iterative process. Your goal is to find all of the articles that are pertinent to your subject. Successful searching requires you to think about the complexity of language. You need to match the words you use in your search to the words used by article authors and database indexers.
When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply: be thorough, use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and. look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.
Selecting the right quality of literature is the key to successful research literature review. The quality can be estimated by what is known as "The Evidence Pyramid.". The level of evidence of references obtained from the aforementioned search tools are depicted in Figure 9. Systematic reviews obtained from Cochrane library constitute ...
The best reviews synthesize studies to draw broad theoretical conclusions about what a literature means, linking theory to evidence and evidence to theory. This guide describes how to plan, conduct, organize, and present a systematic review of quantitative (meta-analysis) or qualitative (narrative review, meta-synthesis) information.
SLR, as the name implies, is a systematic way of collecting, critically evaluating, integrating, and presenting findings from across multiple research studies on a research question or topic of interest. SLR provides a way to assess the quality level and magnitude of existing evidence on a question or topic of interest.
The Literature Selection Technica Review Committee (LSTRC) reviews and selects journals for MEDLINE based on the research quality and impact of the journals. A distinctive feature of MEDLINE is that the records are indexed with NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). PubMed also contains citations for PubMed Central (PMC) articles. PMC is a full ...
Literature review guide! In this video, I will show you how to perform a research literature review using PubMed or Google. For full access to our research c...
Writing a literature review requires a range of skills to gather, sort, evaluate and summarise peer-reviewed published data into a relevant and informative unbiased narrative. ... a reading list by searching online citation databases such as PubMed ®, 3 which incorporates MEDLINE ®, 4 or Europe PubMed Central (PMC). 5 The text-mining ...
Students and researchers in the health sciences are often required to conduct literature searches for a number of reasons including identifying appropriate studies and methods to include in a literature review manuscript. Understanding the basics of database searching can allow you to effectively and efficiently find the information you need.
The best proposals are timely and clearly explain why readers should pay attention to the proposed topic. It is not enough for a review to be a summary of the latest growth in the literature: the ...
Environment. Policy*. Research Design. Systematic Reviews as Topic*. Traditional approaches to reviewing literature may be susceptible to bias and result in incorrect decisions. This is of particular concern when reviews address policy- and practice-relevant questions. Systematic reviews have been introduced as a more rigorous approach to ...
Literature review is an essential feature of academic research. Fundamentally, knowledge advancement must be built on prior existing work. To push the knowledge frontier, we must know where the frontier is. By reviewing relevant literature, we understand the breadth and depth of the existing body of work and identify gaps to explore.
A literature search is distinguished from, but integral to, a literature review. Literature reviews are conducted for the purpose of (a) locating information on a topic or identifying gaps in the literature for areas of future study, (b) synthesising conclusions in an area of ambiguity and (c) helping clinicians and researchers inform decision-making and practice guidelines.
Clicking on "neoplasms" will bring up the page where you have the option of selecting any of the features listed above to help you refine your search. Also, clicking "links" adjacent to the MeSH term desired, will give you a drop-down menu which offers several options: PubMed: search PubMed with the term.
This video demonstrates the search process, starting with finding keywords and ending with executing the search and accessing the literature. Topics covered ...
Abstract. Without a literature review, there can be no research project. Literature reviews are necessary to learn what is known (and not known) about a topic of interest. In the respiratory care profession, the body of research is enormous, so a method to search the medical literature efficiently is needed. Selecting the correct databases, use ...
Learn how to develop a PubMed literature search strategy for a systematic review.For details on the search building blocks, check this video playlist:https:/...
Purpose and Importance of the Literature Review. An understanding of the current literature is critical for all phases of a research study. Lingard 9 recently invoked the "journal-as-conversation" metaphor as a way of understanding how one's research fits into the larger medical education conversation. As she described it: "Imagine yourself joining a conversation at a social event.
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Abstract. Undertaking a literature search can be a daunting prospect. Breaking the exercise down into smaller steps will make the process more manageable. This article suggests 10 steps that will help readers complete this task, from identifying key concepts to choosing databases for the search and saving the results and search strategy.
Polygonum is a plant genus that includes annual and perennial species and is found at various temperatures, from northern temperate regions to tropical and subtropical areas. The genus Polygonum has been used for centuries for various disorders, including hypertension, intestinal and stomach pain, dysuria, jaundice, toothaches, skin allergies, hemorrhoids, cardiac disorders, kidney stones ...
A good review article provides readers with an in-depth understanding of a field and highlights key gaps and challenges to address with future research. Writing a review article also helps to expand the writer's knowledge of their specialist area and to develop their analytical and communication skills, amongst other benefits. Thus, the ...
Therefore, this paper discusses the purposes of LRs in dissertations and theses. Second, the paper considers five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing. Ultimately, this study proposes a twelve-item LR checklist.
Abstract. Efficient literature search is essential to the practice of Evidence-Based Medicine. PubMed provides free access to one of the largest searchable biomedical databases. Efficient literature search using PubMed requires a good understanding of the available search strategies and tools. In this article we present a step-by-step approach ...