Skip to main content

Develop your search skills with our online tutorials

 There are some key search skills you can develop to help your literature search to be more efficient and effective. These are essential skills to have to use in a wide range of different online resources, such as healthcare databases and even google scholar.

young doctor happy he has got the right digital skills

Start to develop your skills by completing these online tutorials:

1. Identify your search terms Learn how to use keywords, phrases, wildcards and truncation 

2. Using a thesaurus Learn how using a thesaurus can help you to find articles via databases

3. Combining searches with boolean operators Use AND, OR and NOT to combine search terms

4. Applying filters to focus results Use filters to focus your search results

More eTutorials

Find all our online tutorials on the Information Skills web page on the Health Library website.

More help

Contact the Health Library if you need any help finding the information you need.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Learning Disability Week 16th to 22nd June 2025

  The theme for Learning Disability Week this year is “Do you see me?” – aiming to celebrate what people with a learning disability bring to society and ensuring that they are seen, heard and valued in all aspects of life.   RELATED LIBRARY RESOURCES     The Health Libraries, both at the Royal Stoke and County Hospitals, offer numerous resources related to this topic. In the lists below you’ll find a small selection of items from our collection. To locate these items, simply go to our online catalogue or ask at the counter.  This document covers the following resources – books , journals , journal articles and patient information . BOOKS Learning and intellectual disability nursing practice ; Mafuba, Kay; 2023; (Routledge); 2 nd edition, ebook. Learning disability nursing: developing professional practice ; Northway, Ruth; Hopes, Paula; 2022; (Critical Publishing) Intellectual disabilities: toward inclusion ; Atherton, Helen; Crickmore, Debbie J; 2022; (C...

NHS resources are changing from the 30th June 2025

  A range of our resources for NHS customers are purchased by NHS England as a national Core Content offering. At the end of June 2025, the content of the core collection is changing.  You may find some resources are no longer available to you. Specifically affected are the Oxford Handbooks e-books and access to a range of ProQuest databases.   Oxford Handbooks: Some Oxford Handbooks are being replaced by locally purchased e-book access. We also have a range of Oxford Handbooks available in print from the health libraries. To find our local resources - in the NHS Knowledge and Libraries Hub search for Oxford Handbook. Then select the limiter 'Library Catalogue only'. Limiters are located on the left hand side of the screen. Both local e-books and print books will then show in the results. The Knowledge and Library Hub can be accessed via this link NHS Knowledge and Libraries Hub or by clicking on the Knowledge and Libraries Hub icon on the desktop on a UHNM com...

Don't lose your library membership - renew your account.

NHS library cards for the Health Library all have an expiry date set.  NHS staff are be contacted before your card expires asking whether you wish to renew and continue your membership.  Please make sure that you respond to ensure that your membership continues. You'll be asked to check the details we have are correct - please let us know of any changes to ensure that you are still eligible for membership. If you have any queries about your membership you can email the library at health.library@keele.ac.uk - make sure you include your library card number if possible.