6.4  Designing search strategies

6.4.1 Designing search strategies – an introduction

6.4.2 Structure of a search strategy

6.4.3 Service providers and search interfaces

6.4.4 Sensitivity versus precision

6.4.5 Controlled vocabulary and text words

6.4.6 Synonyms, related terms, variant spellings, truncation and wildcards

6.4.7 Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT)

Figure 6.4.a: Combining concepts as search sets

6.4.8 Proximity operators (NEAR, NEXT and ADJ)

6.4.9 Language, date and document format restrictions

6.4.10 Identifying fraudulent studies, other retracted publications, errata and comments

6.4.11 Search filters

6.4.12 Updating searches

6.4.13 Demonstration search strategies

Box 6.4.e: Demonstration search strategy for the CENTRAL, for the topic ‘Tamoxifen for breast cancer’

Box 6.4.f: Demonstration search strategy for the MEDLINE (Ovid format), for the topic ‘Tamoxifen for breast cancer’

6.4.14 Summary points