Skip to main content

Struggling with Literature Searching? Your Health Library can help

By

 Whether you’re an undergraduate tackling your first systematic search, a postgraduate refining a dissertation, or a researcher navigating complex evidence resources, literature searching can feel overwhelming. Choosing the right databases, building effective search strategies and documenting your methods all take time and specialist knowledge.

The Health Library is here to help students and researchers find the evidence they need, faster and with confidence.

Our online information skills etutorials are designed to help you build strong searching skills, whenever and wherever you need them. Our bite‑sized tutorials guide you through:

  • Turning your topic into a clear search question
  • Choosing the right health databases
  • Using keywords, subject headings, and boolean operators
  • Searching effectively for articles, reviews and research evidence
  • Saving, refining, and documenting your searches

Perfect for students at all levels and busy researchers, the etutorials are flexible, practical, and easy to follow—whether you’re getting started or brushing up on advanced techniques.

Search smarter, not harder

Explore the Health Library etutorials and take control of your literature searching today. Start with our tutorial Introduction to Literature Searching and learn about the steps you follow to create a search strategy. Just need a refresher? Then try our Literature Searching Flashcards for a quick review.

2 nurses working together and list of advantages of the literature searching etutorial

Support for Students at Every Level

You don’t need to be an experienced researcher to benefit from library support. We regularly help:

  • Undergraduates building confidence with academic databases
  • Postgraduate students preparing dissertation or thesis searches
  • NHS staff developing evidence searching skills

More help

Your research deserves a strong evidence base—and we’re here to help you build it. For more help check all our training opportunities or contact the Health Library.

 

This blog post was created in collaboration with MS Copilot.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Information skills to support literature searching

By
As healthcare workers you make decisions based on evidence. Whether you are presenting arguments in an assignment, discussing changing practice, researching a new intervention or deciding on the best patient care, you need the best evidence to help you. To find the best evidence you need to use your information skills, so that you can gather the best information as efficiently and effectively as possible. Developing a literature search plan will remind you of the steps to follow and help you to be systematic in your searching. We can help you to develop your skills and set you on the right path to completing your literature search, to find the information you need. Try these tutorials to get started with literature searching: 1. Complete our tutorial Introduction to Literature Searching . Follow these steps to start your literature search plan. Print out your completed plan at the end. 2. Save a template Search Plan . Use this plan to prompt you to think about your search t...
Post a Comment
Read more

V is for visit us

By
Why not come along and visit us? We are located on the ground floor, in the Clinical Education Centre, at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. Here are some instructions on how to get here, along with a Google Street map view. We’re in the really distinctive round building you can see from the A34. The library is usually a quiet place to study or catch up on some paperwork. You can use the silent study room if you need. We also have NHS and Keele networked computers, as well as provision for photocopying, scanning and printing. More Help Please check our opening hours before you visit Contact the Health Library here if you need to.
Post a Comment
Read more