_KINS5594: Guide to Systematic Searching for Evidence Synthesis Projects

This guide will introduce you to essential concepts and skills for systematic searching. There are materials for you to independently read and view, and you'll be designing your search along the way.

Watch the video below for a detailed introduction to this guide!

Step 1: Design your initial search strategy

You'll begin on the next page of this guide, Developing & Documenting Your Search Strategy, and work sequentially through each page until you've completed the content on Using Search Hedges in PubMed. These five pages will walk you step by step through the process of developing your initial search strategy, and prepare you to manage the references you'll be locating when you search.

Be sure to work through the pages in order, as each one builds on the last!

Step 2: Meet with your librarian!

Once you've worked through all the content on the first five pages, go to Scheduling Your Meeting. We'll meet synchronously to discuss your initial search strategy and collaborate to revise and improve it.

Step 3: Finalize your search strategy and put it into practice

After we've met, you'll work sequentially from After Your Meeting through the end of the guide. By the time you finish, you'll have executed systematic searches in PubMed and the Cochrane Library, obtained all the references you need, documented your search, filled out essential parts of your PRISMA flow diagram, and begun screening your references for inclusion and exclusion.

Accessing library resources from off-campus:

Your NetID is your login to all library databases and for requesting materials.

Interlibrary Services

In your searches, it's inevitable that you'll find references for articles you want to read that UConn doesn't have. You can get those items through our Interlibrary Services! Articles (and book chapters) can generally be obtained as PDFs in a day or so, and the service is free to you. Learn more about this service and create your ILLiad account at the link below:

Move on to Developing & Documenting Your Search Strategy!