SEARCHING TIPS, HINTS, & REMINDERS
Important searching tips and hints:
- Don't spend hours doing your literature searches. If you're searching for more than 45 minutes and haven't found relevant citations, stop and contact a reference librarian for help (refquest@med-libwww.bu.edu, 617-638-4228).
- Don't spend hours viewing/displaying full text online. Your BUMC MEDLINE Plus/OVID session will timeout after 30 minutes. Print, e-mail, or save your citations, then browse and print offline.
- If you're having trouble identifying the proper MeSH for your topic(s), try this approach:
Do a text word (term.tw.) or title word (term.ti.) search for your topic. Then, identify a promising citation, and look at its "complete reference." Scroll down to the MeSH display, and see which MeSH are used. Then, integrate these MeSH into your search strategy.
- If you're finding too much literature on your topic, try FOCUSING your MeSH terms, or attaching logical SUBHEADINGS to the MeSH terms. Also try LIMITING search results to logical variables such as English, human, review articles, randomized controlled trials, etc.
- If you're finding too little literature on your topic, try to think of additional MeSH terms that can be used to draw-in relevant literature.
You may also need to approach the topic from a slightly different perspective. For example, if you're searching for the self-image of teenaged girls who have had liver transplants, you can't expect to find much, if any literature, because the population simply does not exist. Try a different approach: Look for literature on the self-concept of people of any age who have undergone liver transplants or any kind of transplants. Or, look for literature on the self-concept of people who have survived terminal illnesses. Or, look for literature on the self-concept of teenaged girls who have undergone long hospitalizations or survived terminal illnesses. Sometimes thinking about your topic in a different way will make all the difference in your search results.
- Don't forget to EXPLODE your MeSH terms.
- Remember not to overuse SUBHEADINGS. Rule-of-Thumb: Select "All Subheadings" in most cases.
- If you need to quickly hone-in on a particular concept or key word, and aren't sure of the proper MeSH, try doing a title word (term.ti.) search. Also try combining MeSH searching with title word searching to quickly identify the most relevant articles.
- While it's tempting to immediately LIMIT your search to "local holdings" or "full text" for the sake of convenience, relevant citations can be lost if BU doesn't happen to subscribe to the journals in-print or online. Apply these limits after you've completed your search and had the opportunity to browse through the retrieval.
 Take a moment to go over the tips on author searching, title word searching, and journal name searching.
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