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Advanced Literature Searching For Health

3.1 Entering your search terms

In most health databases, you will search by:

  • Building your search line-by-line, entering one term at a time to build up your concepts
  • Combining your terms by using the search history, and the ANDs and ORs

If you've planned out your search using a table like we have in our previous examples, this will make it easier to enter your terms into the database. Revisit the table on page 2.7.

 

Watch the videos below to see how to enter your search into Medline and CINAHL.

Filters

In the videos you will have seen filters (also known as limits) in action. They:

  • Include publication type, gender, age, publication year and more. Each database will have its own set of filters.
  • Can be applied on top of your completed search to identify articles of interest
  • Are best used when they are applied sparingly and each applied one at a time