How to search

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It can be difficult to find the information you need to answer a question. This guide will take you through the following steps - with tips and advice to help you find the answers in the time you have - and connect you to further learning to improve your information skills.

What do you need to know - define your question, concepts and keywords
Where will you look - decide what sources to use
Can you trust the information you have found
- What
- Who
- When
Further learning
- eLearning module

1: What do you need to know - define your question, concepts and keywords

1.1: What do you want to achieve

Thinking about why you’re looking for information and what you want to do with the answer is important as it will change how you go about searching for it.

For example, spending a few minutes to find a specific fact is very different from planning a report or research project - as will be the audience you expect to share the results with.

Here are some possible types of questions:

Get an overview of a topic for background information
Find a fact or specific piece of information or the latest evidence
Find information to give to a patient or client / another person
Conduct some research
What sort of material am I after- case studies, systematic reviews, guidelines, patient leaflets, medicines information
Compare local practice with published evidence
Find people to learn from the experiences of others or experts

Tip:

Take a minute to think about the type of question you are asking and make it as clear and focused as possible
Write it down in a document or spreadsheet. This will be a record of your question and search strategy

1.2: Planning your search

Remember, you have to ask the right question to get the right answer! The more careful you are in wording your question, the more likely it is that your search will return results you need.

Concepts: Start by breaking your question down into concepts or component parts

Key words: It’s important to know what you’re asking, but most of the websites you will use to search for information will work better if you describe what you want to know in a selection of key words, rather than a long sentence

See the sections below for more about ‘concepts’ and ‘keywords’.

Concepts: Think about

The setting, people and actions in your question
Need to be more specific? Use frameworks such as PICO to help you think about all aspects of your question
Keep in mind the purpose of your search and what you want to achieve

Keywords: Think about

Which words are key to each of the concepts in your question
Synonyms or alternative terms - words which mean nearly the same things e.g. pain vs ache
Stop words - like ‘the’ and ‘a’ can be removed without losing the essential concepts
Other spellings - especially US vs UK e.g. colour vs color

Frameworks:

PICO: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes
Helps you to think about the concepts within your question that you can use to structure your search
Useful for clinical questions
One of many - see more at Frameworks

Tip:

Make a table of keywords in your question with alternative terms
These keywords will form your search terms

1.3: Combining keywords

A lot of search engines will combine your keywords for you in the background, but using simple tricks can get you much better results whether you are using Google or a database.

Common strategies include:

Boolean operators
Filters
Quotation marks
Truncation
Brackets

Boolean operators

You may have encountered these before without realising what they are
There are three common operators: AND OR NOT
Usually entered in capital letters
Placed between your keywords, they will change the type and number of results you get

AND

Searches for resources containing all keywords together
Reduces the number of search results

Searches for resources containing either/any keywords
Increases the number of results

NOT

Searches for resources which do not include a keyword
Should be used rarely and with caution as can unintentionally exclude relevant results

Boolean operators AND OR NOT Venn diagram. Key below shows: blue = results returned; white = results not returned. AND diagram shows two overlapping circles with the overlapping centre coloured blue to indicate results returned. OR diagram shows two overlapping circles with both circles completely coloured blue to indicate results returned. NOT diagram shows two overlapping circles with only the non overlapping section of left circle coloured blue to indicate results returned.

Filters

Menu options that allow you to add limits like date range to your search which reduces the number of results
Don't add too many or you'll end up with no results

Quotation marks

Use “” to search a phrase and return only results that include those two words together and in that order
For example: “social media”

Truncation

Use * to search singular, plural and other versions of a term
For example: Nurs* to find nurse, nurses, nursing

Brackets

Use ( ) to link concepts to find results that combine these keywords
For example: (nurs* AND “social media”)

Tip:

Many search engines and databases have help and guidance for searching
Include shortcuts to improve your search which can vary depending on the provider
When entering your search terms do this one at a time so you can see what words or terms work well

Pink light bulb with 'lunch and learn' text in background

Finding information lunch and learn series:

What do you need to know? Defining your information need or research question

2: Where will you look - decide what sources to use

2.1: Evidence pyramid

This suggests a hierarchy of research and evidence. At the top is the highest quality of research or evidence that is robustly researched, trustworthy, unbiased and transferable. At the bottom is research or evidence that is difficult to quality assure, susceptible to bias and less likely to be easily transferable.

This can be a useful way of helping you to decide where to search and prioritise your sources. Find out more about what it is, criticisms and other approaches: Evidence pyramid explained

Finding information lunch and learn series

An introduction to different study types

2.2: Select your source

The time you have spent thinking about the purpose of your search and creating your question will also help you to decide where to search. There are no hard and fast rules but the following suggestions can help you get started.

Portrait of a smiling young Indian student reading a book in a library pexels-sanketgraphy-16461275

Overview of a topic, background information or basic research

Types of source: Books, web search

Example source: The Knowledge Network Library Search

Man reading a leaflet with advice on sexual health

Check a fact or specific piece of information

Type of source: up to date policy or summaries of evidence

Example source: The Knowledge Network Evidence summaries

Photo of a sheet of paper with numbers and graphs

Statistical information

Type of source: government, public health and research organisations

Example source: Finding statistical data Sway

Student reading notebook and studying at night with laptop

Conduct research

Type of source: large collections suitable for systematic searching

Example source: The Knowledge Network Databases

NHS staff in uniform talking and laughing together

Practical experience

Type of source: People, networks and communities

Example source: Communities of practice

Tip:

Add the sources you are going to use to the table with your keywords
Note what happens when you search your keywords in each source
How many results did you get? What filters/keywords did you add or remove? What was the impact on your results?

Finding information lunch and learn series

Getting the best out of The Knowledge Network
Getting started with databases

2.3: Web and AI searching

In many cases, you will want to use formal, academic research to answer your question but sometimes a search engine is a good place to start to get an idea of the literature that might be available. However, you should take the time to reflect and assess the information you find to make sure it’s correct and will not compromise the quality of your work.

Keep in mind:

Many sources will not appear in search engine results and are inaccessible to AI
Content from some sources will be unavailable because it is behind a ‘paywall’ - this is content that you have to pay to access, usually via a subscription, such as those made available via The Knowledge Network Library Search
Content, conclusions and recommendations of these sources will therefore not be included in AI summaries
The results you see first in a search engine are largely based on whether the creators have paid to have their sites appear highest in the results rather than their relevance to your keywords
Most search engines have an advanced search which allows you to add multiple keywords and filters, such as Google Advanced Search
Google Scholar can be used to quickly search for and access journal articles. You can set it up to get easy access to online journal articles subscribed to by NHS Education for Scotland by following the steps outlines in our Google Scholar pages

Google Scholar	The Knowledge Network Library Search	Databases
Easy search functionality Unclear how results are prioritised Includes content not available in full text Includes books and articles Very little quality control Updated regularly	Basic search functionality Health and social care material NHS Scotland full text access Includes books and articles High level of quality control Updated regularly	Sophisticated search functionality Subject focused Includes content not available in full text Mainly research articles High level of quality control Updated regularly
GOOD for:	GOOD for:	GOOD for:
Basic, quick searches Overview of current research	Basic to intermediate searches More search options and quality assurance	Comprehensive searches Working with large numbers of results
NOT GOOD for:	NOT GOOD for:	NOT GOOD for:
Comprehensive, high quality searches	Comprehensive searches in a specific area	Quick and easy searching

Tip:

Include any search engines you use in your search record
Note what kind of AI summaries you get and whether these conflict with information from other sources

Finding information lunch and learn series

Getting the best out of web searching

3: Can you trust the information you have found - assess quality

We’ve discovered that information is available to us from lots of different sources. Now it’s time to think about how well it answers our question - is it relevant and comprehensive enough? We also need to assess the trustworthiness, particularly in the case of research or evidence. Part of figuring this out is often called ‘critical thinking’ and is a really useful skill for professional development, as well as for everyday problems.

You should consider:

What
Who
When

3.1: What

No matter where the information you have found has come from, there are a few things you can consider to help you evaluate and decide whether to base your decisions on it, or include it in your bibliography or project.

Relevancy: does the information help to answer your question?
Validity: are the arguments logical and has the author given evidence to support them?
Accuracy: is the evidence used to support the arguments relevant and correct?
Bias: has the author given both sides of the story or do they seem to be trying to force a particular viewpoint on the reader?
Evidence: how was this collected and are there references you can check? You might want to check this yourself instead of relying on the interpretation of others.

3.2: Who

Not all sources are created equal and it can be difficult to know if we can trust the information we find, particularly on the Internet. When accessing information from a trustworthy starting point, like the Knowledge Network or a library, we know that some quality checks have taken place – not so on the Internet, so here are some things to look out for to help you decide what to trust.

Who wrote the information? Look for an ‘About’ page or similar, which should detail who is responsible
Check the URL:
- gov - government information
- ac - academic institution (UK)
- edu - educational institution (non-UK)
- location e.g. ‘nz’ - New Zealand
- https - more secure version of http usually used by public bodies
Are they qualified or knowledgeable enough to provide information on this subject? Look for information about the author’s educational and professional background and other publications by doing a web or library search
What is the aim of the website? Does it represent an organisation with particular motives or agendas? Is it trying to sell a product or promote a campaign? Look for any advertising which might provide a clue
Is it formal research or a personal blog or social media site? Consider how this might affect the reliability
It’s really easy for anyone to publish material like books and articles on the web these days, without having it checked by an editorial process. Look for logos or an ‘About Us’ page to check this
Has it been reviewed, who by and how well? Look for references to trustworthy sources like formal research, policy documents, legislation, etc.

3.3: When

On the Internet, there are no obligations for information to be revised or updated at any point, so it’s worth considering how up-to-date the information is.

Start by looking for dates the information was produced and published
Can you tell when it was last updated? Look for copyright information at the very bottom of the homepage
Use your own knowledge of the field if you can – is the information presented still useful or has it been superseded?

Tip:

Further tips for finding trusted information and tools for assessing information at: Misinformation, disinformation and fake news
‘Critical appraisal’ is a more formal process used to assess research articles. Find out more at: Critical appraisal

Finding information lunch and learn series

Getting the best out of web searching

Further learning

A guide to effective literature searching eLearning

Please note that you will need to be signed into Turas Learn to access the eLearning below.

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