These are slides I used for a presentation to a group of graduate students about to undertake their field work for their capstone project in public health. The aim of the presentation was to provide guidance for topic selection, developing research questions, creating search strategies, conducting searches, and managing search results. The concepts and and methods are informed by standards for systematic review but are presented at a more general and less rigorous level.

1. +
Searching: Methods, Concepts, Resources,
& Tools
John Pell
Assistant Professor
Hunter College Libraries

2. + Overview of the content of this talk:
 Topic Selection
 Formulation of a Research Question
 Search Strategies
 Information Resources
 Tools for managing searches

3. +
Topic Selection

4. +
Topic Selection:
 Clearly identify the overall goals/strategic purpose of the
activity in order to align the goals for priority setting within the
strategic purpose of the sponsoring program.
 Clearly define and apply criteria for prioritization among
potential program activities
 Involve stakeholders in the identification and/or prioritization
process
Principles and processes for research topic selection
Whitlock EP, Lopez SA, Chang S, Helfand M, Eder M, Floyd N.
Identifying, Selecting, and Refining Topics. 2009. Available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47096/table/cerguidetopics.t1/?re
port=objectonly. Accessed June 12, 2013.

5. +
Topic Selection:
 Appropriateness
 Importance
 Desirability of new research/duplication
 Feasibility
 Potential value
Topic Selection Criteria
Whitlock EP, Lopez SA, Chang S, Helfand M, Eder M, Floyd N. Identifying,
Selecting, and Refining Topics. 2009. Available at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47096/table/cerguidetopics.t4/?repo
rt=objectonly. Accessed June 12, 2013.

6. +
Formulation of a Research
Question

7. +
Formulation of a Research Question:
 “Well-formulated questions will guide many aspects of the
review process, including determining eligibility criteria,
searching for studies, collecting data from included studies, and
presenting findings.”
What is important about a research question?
Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic
Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The
Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-
handbook.org.

8. +
Formulation of a Research Question:
 Drugs?
 Is Aspirin good for preventing strokes?
 Is Aspirin more effective than Thienopyridine derivatives for
preventing stroke and other serious vascular events in high
vascular risk patients?
Questions/Research Questions/Well-Formulated
Questions
1. Sudlow CL, Mason G, Maurice JB, Wedderburn CJ, Hankey GJ.
Thienopyridine derivatives versus aspirin for preventing stroke and other
serious vascular events in high vascular risk patients. In: Cochrane
Database of Systematic Reviews. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2009.
Available at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/doi/10.1002/1
4651858.CD001246.pub2/abstract. Accessed June 12, 2013.

9. +
Formulation of a Research Question:
 POPULATION
 INTERVENTION
 COMPARISON
 OUTCOME
The PICO format
Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic
Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The
Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-
handbook.org.

10. +
Formulation of a Research Question:
 How does cup feeding compare to other forms of supplemental
enteral feeding on weight gain and achievement of successful
breastfeeding in newborn infants who are unable to fully
breastfeed?
 How effective are lifestyle, drug and surgical interventions for
treating obesity in childhood?
 What are the effects of primary prevention interventions
(school-based, community/home-based, clinic-based, and faith-
based) on unintended pregnancies among adolescents?
Try identifying the POPULATION, INTERVENTION,
COMPARISON, and OUTCOME:

11. +
Search Strategies

12. +
Search Strategies
 Specific
 Reproducible
 Provide evidence-base for making statements about the quality
of existing information
Search Strategies and Research Methodology

13. +
Search Strategies
 Searches should seek high sensitivity, which may result in
relatively low precision
 Too many different search concepts should be avoided, but a
wide variety of search terms should be combined with OR
within each concept.
 Existing highly sensitive search strategies (filters) should be
used.
“Sensitive” search strategies- Cochrane Standard for
Systematic Review
Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic
Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The
Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-
handbook.org.

14. +
Search Strategies
 Excerpt from PubMed bioethics search strategy:
 jsubsete OR ethical [ti] OR ethically [ti] OR ethico OR ethics [mh] OR ethics
[ti] OR ethics [sh] OR ethicist OR ethicists OR ethics committee [cn] OR
bioethic OR bioethical OR bioethicist OR bioethicists OR bioethics OR
abortion, criminal [majr] OR abortion, eugenic [majr] OR ((abortion, induced
[majr:noexp] OR abortion, legal [majr]) NOT animals [mh:noexp] AND
(attitude [mh] OR public opinion OR coercion OR decision making [mh] OR
prenatal diagnosis [majr] OR pregnancy trimester, third [mh] OR women's
health services OR women's rights [mh])) OR (abortion, legal [majr] AND
trends) OR (abortion, therapeutic [majr] AND (attitude [mh] OR public
opinion OR coercion OR decision making [mh] OR women's rights [mh])) OR
advance directive adherence OR advance directives [mh] OR advance
directives [tiab] OR animal care committees [mh] OR (animal
What does a “sensitive” strategy look like?
Ethics KI of. Search Strategy Used to Create the Bioethics Subset on
PubMed. Available at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_subsets/bioethics_strategy.html.
Accessed June 13, 2013.

15. +
Information Resources

16. + Information Resources
 Research Library
 Databases
 Research Guides
 Search Engines
 Government Agencies
 Non-profit Organizations

17. +
Information Resources
Research Library
Find your library’s list of
databases on the web

18. +
Information Resources
Library Databases
“Browse by Subject” for
smaller lists

19. +
Information Resources
Library Research Guides
Use library research guides
to help find a variety of
sources of information

20. +
Information Resources
Library Research Guides
Library research guides are
tagged by subject and course
numbers, try browsing the
public health guides

21. +
Information Resources
Google Scholar and your Research Library
Link Google Scholar with your
research library using the
settings menu

22. +
Information Resources
Google Scholar and Your Research Library
Use the “library links” menu to
set up connections to your
library
Note the
“Bibliography
manager” settings.
You can use these to
set up your citation
manager.

23. +
Information Resources
Google Scholar and Your Research Library
Enter your library’s name,
check the box, and click save
to set up links to your library’s
full text resources

24. +
Information Resources
Google Scholar and Your Research Library
Full Text Links will appear in
this column when available.

25. +
Information Resources
Government Agencies

26. +
Information Resources
Non-profits

27. +
Information Resources
Data & Statistics on Government and Non-profit sites
Check for “Data & Statistics,”
“Research” or “Publications”
headings.

28. +
Information Resources
Government & Non-profit web apps for data

29. +
Tools for Managing Searches

30. +
Tools for Managing Searches
Research tools

31. +
Tools for Managing Searches
 Capture Citations from Websites
 Save and Organize Records from Databases
 Link Database Records with Full-text Files
 Automatically Download Full-text Files When Available
 Download Citation Data for Full-text Files
 Quickly Create Bibliographies in a variety of styles
 Quickly insert and format in-text citations in your writing
 Collaborate on shared projects
Research tools may help you to:

32. +
Keep in touch with your librarian!
These presentation slides can
be downloaded from my
slideshare profile.