In order to search databases and sources, you need to define your question as a series of individual concepts.
You will also need to consider listing synonyms to ensure you have thought of every way of referring to your concept.
An example proposal:
After the comprehensive study carried out by UK Vets Research in 2004, what evidence is there that domestic cats prefer meat to dry food?
Concept | Domestic cat | Food |
Synonyms | Cats | Dry food |
Kittens | Wet food | |
Meat | ||
Pet food | ||
Biscuits | ||
You should keep a complete list of these terms to apply to each of your chosen sources.
Limits
You should also consider which limits you want to place on your search. For example:
Dates - how far back do you want to go? Was there a change of policy, treatment or theory which mean you don't need to search before a certain date?
Publication type - are you only interested in articles, or clinical trials and RCTs, or do you want to include all materials?
Cohort - is your study just looking at men, or women, or a certain age group, or a particular style of painting or a certain geographical area?
Choosing limits will allow you to discard material which isn't relevant to your review.
For our example proposal we could apply the limits:
- Publications after 2004
- Domestic cats only - no wild or 'big' cats, or zoo animals