In a database, you can create a search strategy that will target the articles you are looking for. You can do this by combining your keywords using AND and OR.

Let's learn more using our example keywords:

When all keywords are combined, a search in a database may look like:

         ("Green space*" OR Landscape)

AND ("Mental health" OR Wellbeing OR "Well-being")

AND ("University students" OR "College students")

This means:

• Similar terms are combined with OR.
• Different concepts are combined with AND.
• The search results will be relevant to your topic, as each article will include all three key concepts.

After you have run your search in a database, next, review your results to see if they are relevant. You may decide to refine your search based on what you see.

For example, this article would be found with our search, because of the highlighted keywords:

Title: How university blue and green space affect students' mental health: A scoping review

Abstract: University students frequently experience high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, and a variety of other mental health challenges. There is growing evidence that university campus landscapes may offer tangible benefits for mental health and overall well-being but to date this has not been brought together and synthesised.

Refining a search

Looking at the title and abstract of this article, we could consider adding to our search:

• The related term depression
• The plural landscapes

Once you have developed your search strategy, it is important to review and test the search to ensure it is capturing the scope you require.

Consider these tips:

• Check your search results to see if known key papers are being retrieved.
• Make sure you have all relevant subject headings - check the headings of relevant papers.
• If you are getting a lot of irrelevant material - take a close look at the records to see what search terms are retrieving these. The terms may be too broad or have multiple meanings.
• Check for errors e.g. in spelling or search operators.

Once you have finalised your search strategy, you will then translate it across several databases.

Consider these tips:

• Databases usually have their own set of subject headings so you will need to translate your headings across.
• You can use subject headings found in one database as keywords in another.
• Multidisciplinary databases such as Scopus do not use subject headings and require keyword searching.
• Search fields and techniques e.g. proximity operators may differ across databases.

Using Google has its advantages and disadvantages depending on your topic.

• Google Scholar is useful as a complementary tool to academic databases. It can be used to find very recent papers or preprints, or for topics where there is not a lot of coverage in academic databases.
• Google Advanced Search can be used to find grey literature available online.
• When looking at information online, it is important to evaluate the resources you find.