Step 1: Early Searching
- Search your topic and interest broadly. What are researchers saying about your topic?
- Example: workplace violence
Step 2: Search Your Main Keywords and AND
- Once you have a question or topic, search the main keywords. Add AND to separate the different keywords.
- Example: emergency department AND workplace violence AND behavioral response team
Step 3: Add More Keywords With OR and Parentheses
- Add similar words to each concept from your search using OR. Separate ORs and ANDs using parentheses.
- Example: (emergency department OR emergency room) AND (workplace violence OR occupational violence OR workplace abuse) AND (behavioral response team OR BERT)
Step 4: Use Filters
- Add filters to refine your search by date, publication type, or another filter.
- Example: (emergency department OR emergency room) AND (workplace violence OR occupational violence OR workplace abuse) AND (behavioral response team OR BERT) Filter: Last 5 years
Step 5: Use Controlled Vocabulary
- Authors use "controlled vocabulary," aka standard phrases to tag their research and make it easier to find. In PubMed, these are called MeSH terms. You can find MeSH terms by clicking on an article and scrolling down until you see "MeSH Terms."
- Example MeSH terms for this search: Emergency Service, Hospital [Mesh]; Workplace Violence [Mesh]
Step 6: Use Asterisks and Field Codes
- Asterisks search all available endings to a word; for example, "young adult*" searches young adult and young adulthood. Field codes tell a database where exactly to look for an article. A commonly used field code is [tiab], to search in the title/abstract only.
- Example: (emergenc* [tiab] OR Emergency Service, Hospital [Mesh]) AND (workplace violence OR occupational violence OR workplace abuse OR workplace violence [Mesh]) AND (behavioral response team* [tiab] OR BERT [tiab])
