Find out more about preparing and planning your literature search: https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/researchmethods/literature-review-2/lt-review-sub-page-2/
Creating your search strategy involves deciding what words to search for, how to combine them and how to make sure you are not missing out relevant results.
solar powered refrigeration for storing vaccines in developing countries'
Identify synonyms/different terminology and alternative spellings
| Key word | Synonyms |
|---|---|
| Solar power | photovoltaic, solar electricity, solar cell, solar energy |
| Refrigerate | cold storage, freezer |
| Vaccine | inoculation, immunisation |
| Developing countries | emergent nations, third world, developing nations, underdeveloped nations |
Truncation replaces any number of characters at the start or the end of a word, e.g. chem* will find chemist, chemists, chemistry, chemical, chemoselective, chemiluminescent, chemotherapy etc
A wildcard replaces characters in the middle of words, useful for finding UK and USA spellings, eg col?r finds both Color and Colour in Web of Science.
If you need more precise wildcards, find out more at https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/researchmethods/literature-review-2/lt-review-sub-page-2/
Use quotation marks to search for terms next to each other eg "copper sulphate". Phrase searching makes your search more specific and improves results
Use OR to combine different words for the same search concept
Use AND to combine different search concepts
Use NOT to eliminate a word from the results (use carefully!)
Use parentheses with AND/OR to build your search
The search inside the parentheses is carried out first
You can use multiple sets of parentheses:
(agricultur* OR farm*) AND (technolog* OR “internet of things” OR “big data”)
((teenager OR adolescent) AND media) NOT television
If you search for each search concept individually you can see which searches only return a few results and may need changing, then you can combine all of your searches at the end.
You may find our Database Orientation tutorial useful to find out more.
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