A Guide to Evidence Synthesis: 6. Translate Search Strategies

MEDLINE (via Ovid)

**Note that Cornell does not have access to MEDLINE via Ovid. However, we include this here for those who do have access.**

Tips:

• Navigate to the "Advanced Search" tab for line by line searching
• MeSH term tag represented by /
• “exp” means the MeSH term is “exploded” aka includes and searches all narrower terms
• The .ti,ab,kw. tag searches for terms in the title, abstract, and keywords
• Only accepts straight quotations marks (" "), and will not accept curly quotation marks (“ ”).
  • To ensure you have the correct quotation mark types, type quotation marks manually into the database instead of copying and pasting from another program.  
  • Curly quotation marks will lead to faulty or incomplete search results.
• Truncation is denoted by * and searches for all endings of a particular word
  • Accepted inside quotation marks, but only truncate the last word of the phrase
• Wildcards (none or one unknown character) are denoted by ?

A comprehensive search for weight gain and anemia in Ovid might look like:
 

#1 - exp weight gain/ OR exp overweight/

#2 - (obes* OR "weight gain" OR overweight OR "over weight").ti,ab,kw.

#3 - #1 OR #2

#4 - (an?emi* OR "iron deficien*").ti,ab,kw.

#5 - #3 AND #5

CINAHL(via PubMed)

Tips:

• Use “CINAHL Headings” represented by MH.
• The + means the term is “exploded” aka includes and searches all narrower terms
• TX searches for terms in the full text and citation record
• Quotation marks should be used to search exact phrases
• Truncation (all endings of a particular word) and wildcards (none or more unknown characters) are denoted by *
  • Accepted inside quotation marks for variations on phrases

A comprehensive search for weight gain and anemia in CINAHL might look like:

#1 - MH(“weight gain+”)

#2 - TX(obes* OR "weight gain" OR overweight OR "over weight")

#3 - #1 OR #2

#4 - TX(an*emi* OR "iron deficien*")

#5 - #3 AND #4

Web of Science (Use this syntax for CABI, FSTA, BIOSIS, and SciELO)  

Tips:

• Navigate to the "Advanced Search" tab for line by line searching.
• There is no controlled vocabulary headings for searching the Web of Science Core Collection. Search for keywords in the title/abstract/keywords of articles only. 
• TS= searches for terms in the title, abstract, author keywords
• Quotation marks should be used to search exact phrases.
• Truncation is denoted by * and searches for all endings of a particular word.
• $ in the middle of a word will find multiple spellings of that word.

A comprehensive search for weight gain and anemia in Web of Science might look like:

#1 - TS=(obes* OR "weight gain" OR overweight OR "over weight")

#2 - TS=(an$emi* OR "iron deficien*")

#3 - #1 AND #2

Scopus

Tips:

• Click on "Advanced" below the search bar for line by line searching.
• There are no subject headings in Scopus.
• TITLE-ABS-KEY searches for terms in the title, abstract, and keywords.
• Curly brackets should be used to search exact phrases or if you would not like inflected forms of a word searched.
• Quotation marks should be used to search for when variations of two or more words appear together in the title, abstract, or keywords 
• Truncation (all endings of a particular word) and wildcards (none or more unknown characters) are denoted by *
  • Truncation (*) is okay inside quotation marks, but not curly brackets.

A comprehensive search for weight gain and anemia in Scopus might look like:

#1 - TITLE-ABS-KEY(obes* OR {weight gain} OR overweight OR {over-weight})

#2 - TITLE-ABS-KEY(anemi* OR "iron deficien*")

#3 - #1 AND #2