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Where to search

Bibliographic databases

Searches of bibliographic databases usually identify the bulk of the literature to be reviewed. It is important to search across a range of databases, as no one database covers all the health-related literature. The decision regarding which databases to search depends on the topic of the review.

To ensure you capture as much of the relevant literature as possible, your database searches should:

  • Include all possible search terms (e.g. synonyms, abbreviations and spelling variants)

  • Use both database index terms (when available) and free text terms

For more help with searching databases, see the Health databases guide.

Grey literature

Grey literature is material not commercially or conventionally published. It is produced by government, academics, business and industry, in both print and electronic formats. Examples include conference papers, clinical trials, reports, theses, fact sheets, research in progress, government publications, statistics, and more.

Potential sources of Grey Literature are:

  • Experts in the field
  • Clinical Trial Registers
  • Organisations
  • Institutional repositories
  • Advanced internet searching

Hand-searching

The page-by-page examination of relevant journal issues, reference lists, conference proceedings and other publications for relevant studies is important because:

  • Some databases do not comprehensively index all content in journal issues, or may not index supplements, special issues or conference abstracts.
  • Allows researchers to scan content quickly for relevant studies from high-impact journals.
  • Ensures that relevant studies are not overlooked.

Citation searching

You can use citation databases to access reference lists of key journal articles on your topic - or to see which articles have cited your article of interest since its publication. This provides an additional method of searching to keyword searching.

Stay current

Areas of study and research are constantly changing as research takes place and new knowledge is gained. Setting up alerts will help you to keep up to date. You can set up alerts to be notified when:

  • a newly published article matches your search strategy
  • key journals in your area publish a new issue
  • an article of interest is referenced or cited in new publications or articles

See the Alerts for researchers guide for more information.