UNAM Thesis Handbook v1

THE THESIS LITERATURE REVIEW
A Handbook for University of Namibia Postgraduate Students in Public Health
The Thesis Literature Review

A Handbook for University of Namibia Postgraduate Students in Public Health June 2012
Contents
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................ii 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Introduction to the Literature Review ........................................................... 1 Starting Your Literature Review ................................................................... 6 Defining Your Topic ................................................................................... 12 Identifying Types of Information Sources .................................................. 14 Selecting and Using Databases & Catalogues to Find Information ............ 19 Defining Concepts and Selecting Keywords and Indexing Terms ............. 28 Applying Search Strategies ......................................................................... 33 Selecting Articles and Reading Critically ................................................... 41 Writing the Literature Review .................................................................... 46
10. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 51 References ........................................................................................................... 52 Appendices .......................................................................................................... 56
Thesis Literature Review Handbook v.1
Acknowledgments
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) undertook the development of this text, The Thesis Literature Review: A Handbook for University of Namibia Postgraduate Students in Public Health with funding from the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) though the US Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Global AIDS Program. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals, who helped support the development of this handbook: Ellen Howard, Consultant/Content Expert; Dr. Solomon Yigeremu, University of Namibia Lecturer; Dr. Scholastika Iipinge, University of Namibia Associate Dean, School of Nursing and Public Health; Dr. Agnes Van Dyk, University of Namibia Lecturer; Menete Shatona, University of Namibia Librarian; Selma Imene-Schutt, I-TECH Master of Public Health (MPH) Program Coordinator; Rochelle S. van Wyk, I-TECH MPH Course Administrator; and Virginia Gonzales, I-TECH UNAM Technical Advisor.
For more information, contact: I-TECH Namibia 25 Kalie Roodt Street P.O.Box: 20752, Windhoek University of Washington/I-TECH 901 Boren Avenue, Suite 1100 Seattle, Washington 98104 USA www.go2itech.org
2012 University of Washington/I-TECH
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1.
Introduction to the Literature Review
As described the University of Namibias (UNAMs) Student Guide: Postgraduate Studies (2011, p. 12): The Masters thesis research programme is designed as a training course, whereby it is intended that the candidate will: be exposed to the fundamentals of research, acquire certain new techniques and methods of research, learn how to present the results of research in a scholarly manner, and make some contribution to knowledge.
UNAM Requirements and Overview Regarding the literature review and (where applicable) the theoretical framework, the Student Guide (p. 23) states: In this section students should prepare critical, synthesized, and integrated literature reviews that should demonstrate the need and justification of their studies. The reviews should show gaps in knowledge, theoretical and methodological shortcomings, need for further research, unanswered questions, disagreements in literature, and theoretical frameworks that may need to be revised to resolve controversies. In addition, the reviews should demonstrate what has been done in research areas of interest and what remains uninvestigated. To put the literature review in the context of how your entire thesis will be evaluated by the examiners: As indication of successful training, you will be judged on: appropriateness of the thesis or dissertation title. completeness of the literature review. research methods. presentation of the results.
discussion. conclusions. In the section for the examiners regarding the evaluation criteria for the literature review, the Student Guide (p. 14) states: The literature review should lead the reader to a good understanding of what is already known about the research topic, what gaps of knowledge exist, what the study was intended to contribute, and what hypotheses guided the study. The examiners should comment on the candidates familiarity with the literature. In addition, the Student Guide (p. 27) states: All the literature cited in the text must be arranged in alphabetical order at the end of the thesis/dissertation, in accordance with the format used in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). For the discussion and conclusion sections of the thesis, the Student Guide (p. 14) states: Are the conclusions clearly presented? Are they logical and supported by data? Has the candidate sufficiently indicated how his/her results compare with those of others, as cited in the literature? From the thesis/dissertation, is his/her contribution to new knowledge clearly brought out? Also keep in mind the context of the literature review within the entire structure of thesis, which must be 50,000 words long. You will have the following seven chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Recommendations, and Conclusion (see the Student Guide, p. 27).
There are several types of literature reviews: Systematic reviews (often with meta-analysis): A method of analysis based on pooled data from as many sources as possible, preferably, but not necessarily, using exactly comparable research studies (World Health Organization, 2008, p. 3). The
authors provide enough information about their search terms, strategy, and inclusion and exclusion criteria so that others can replicate the study. In this respect, a systematic review may not be quite the same as a meta-analysis, which relies on comparable studies (Last, 2007). Stand-alone review books, articles, or theses: An article or book published after examination of published material on a subject. It may be comprehensive to various degrees, and the time range of material scrutinized may be broad or narrow, but a review is a synopsis of the current literature. State-of-the-art reviews tend to address more current matters (University of Florida, 2007). Annotated bibliographies: A list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic. A bibliography usually just includes the bibliographic information (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.). An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation. Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources (Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2012, Annotated Bibliographies). Reviews as part of a scholarly article, thesis, or dissertation: A summary of the literature which places the study in the context of other scholars research and provides a context of your study for the reader. For this handbook we will discuss only the last type, the literature review as part of a thesis or dissertation. erature Review to the Thesis Briefly stated, the literature review is a careful mobilization of previous studies in support of the research being proposed by the author in his or her paper, thesis, or dissertation (Garson, 2002, p. 95). The University of Melbourne (2012, What Is a Literature Review) gives more details: It is not enough merely to show what others in your field have discovered. You need to view the work of others with insight to review critically. An effective review analyses and synthesizes material, and it should meet the following requirements: (Caulley, 1992) Compare and contrast different authors views on an issue, 3
Group authors who draw similar conclusions, Criticise aspects of methodology, Note areas in which authors are in disagreement, Highlight exemplary studies, Identify patterns or trends in the literature, Highlight gaps in and omissions in previous research or questions left unanswered, Show how your study relates to previous studies, Show how your study relates to the literature in general, Conclude by summarising what the literature says.
You will notice that these definitions and summaries actually restate the requirements and criteria for evaluation of the literature review described in the Student Guide (2011). In summary, a literature review is a complex and critical summary of carefully selected authoritative studies in your area of research, and the connection between those studies and your topic needs to be carefully established. Your review should give an idea of the work that has been carried out in the subject area, preparing the reader for the study that follows. The relationship between past work and your research topic will be the most important influence on the structure of your literature review. Always keep your topic in mind; it will help you to focus and direct your reading. It should also be noted that a literature review is not just a descriptive list of studies that have been identified or a set of summaries of past research; that is to say, a literature review is not a list or an annotated bibliography. Your review should not end up saying, John Doe said, xxx; Jane Doe said, yyy.
You review the literature to: Learn more about your topic: o landmark studies o leading scholars in the field o key concepts o terminology o methodologies used by others
o sources of data Identify areas of needed research. Expand your thinking about the topic. Define and limit the problem on which you are working. Get a historical perspective and understand the context of your study. Understand what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of previous studies. Assure yourself that you are not unintentionally replicating an existing study. Relate your findings to previous knowledge and suggest further research.
You write the literature review to demonstrate that you: Have learned the skills to find and evaluate information on your topic. Are familiar with the scholars and literature that is related to your topic. Can place your research in the context of other studies in your field. Can critically analyse existing studies and group them together in a meaningful way
Can clearly present the information you have learned and created to others.
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Starting Your Literature Review
Creating a literature review is not a linear process. As you read and discover new information, you may need to redefine or expand your topic and then look for additional literature. Listed below are the steps you will take for your review and the people with whom you might consult if you need help. Steps Clearly define a question or problem that can be answered or solved. Resources Thesis supervisor, mentor, lecturers familiar with your topic, co-workers, colleagues Decide what type of information you need. Systematically search for information on your topic; decide on types of literature you need, terms to use in your search, appropriate databases, and search strategies. Obtain documents. Carefully read the documents you obtain, and systematically and critically analyse the literature in relation to your thesis topic. Decide which literature you will need to use to support Thesis supervisor, mentor, experts in your research. Write your literature review. the field Librarian Supervisor, mentor, librarian Librarian
Examples of Literature Reviews To better understand the structure of reviews before you begin, you might want to look at the following: The literature review sections of successful UNAM theses, which are available in the UNAM Library Special Collections. You can access some of these online by using
the keyword box on the UNAM Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) page (http://millennium.unam.na/), typing in, for example, thesis public health. In the list of results, the entries which say website allow you to view the full text of the thesis online. A gold-standard systematic review (which is not the same type of review as that included in a thesis; see Chapter 1), from the Cochrane database. Here is one example of a systematic review, with the reference presented as it appears in the database: Lewin S, et al. Lay health workers in primary and community health care for maternal and child health and the management of infectious diseases. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2010 Mar 17;(3):CD004015. As a part of a systematic review, the researchers list all the databases searched, the dates of the searches, the search terms and strategies used, and the criteria for including and excluding articles identified in the search. They also explain how search functions work within each of the databases they used. (see Appendix A for an extract) The introductions to research articles, which often show how researchers group and compare findings. Here is one example, with the reference presented in APA style: Weiser, S. D., Tuller, D. M., Frongillo, E. A., Senkungu, J., Mukibi, N., & Bangsberg, D. R. (2010). Food insecurity as a barrier to sustained antiretroviral therapy adherence in Uganda. PLoS One, 5(4), e10340. (see Appendix B for an extract) Broad Research Topics In the beginning, you will probably want to look at more general literature, such as books and review articles related to your topic. This will help you get familiar with some of the work and researchers that preceded you, and get more specific about your topic. To find books, you will want to see the catalogues of the libraries to which you have access: UNAM, the National Library of Namibia, Polytechnic of Namibia, and others as listed on the
Relevant Links page created by the UNAM Library (www.unam.na/library/links.html). You might also want to use resources at the World Health Organization library (the Namibian office is in Windhoek) as well as at other special libraries. To find review articles, use the Cochrane Library, which is available via HINARI, and databases such as PubMed. In PubMed, if you look at the filters (previously known as limits) which appear in the left-hand column on the page displaying the results of a search, you will notice that you can select Review under Article Type (see Appendix C). To explore your topic, you might want to see what you find via Google Scholar (see Appendix D). Relevant Documents It may take a long time to obtain the documents you need, so start gathering those that seem relevant to your topic as soon as possible. You may be able to obtain some these yourself by using local libraries or accessing online documents. But you will probably also need to consult with the faculty librarian responsible for health sciences at the UNAM Library in order to obtain materials via the librarys inter-lending services (http://www.unam.na/library/staff_profiles.html). It might be wise to prepare a list of potential documents to look for and review. You can use this list as a checklist, marking documents obtained/not obtained, reviewed/not reviewed, relevant/not relevant, and so forth. Systematic Notes Start keeping a notebook in which you can track your thoughts and work. This notebook can be on paper or computer. Be as systematic as a scientist who keeps a laboratory notebook. As you proceed, record your research topic; themes within your topic; names of important people in the field or with whom you have consulted; keywords and indexing terms that can be used to describe your topic; key articles; databases where you searched for information, the strategy and search terms used, and date of search; criteria for article inclusion and exclusion; and criteria for evaluating articles read. All these topics will be presented in more detail in the chapters that follow.
As you identify information resources, keep a record of each reference according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), sixth edition (2010a). Although there are other styles available, this is the style selected for use by UNAM graduate students. You do not want to waste time later on tracking down the references that you will be using in your thesis. (To become familiar with APA style, see Appendix E which provides examples of citations and references in the required format, and see Appendix F for a sample paper edited according to the APA rules.) In general, what you want to keep track of is the following list compiled for the writing programme at Dartmouth University (Gocsik, 2005): If your source is a book, make note of the title, the author, the publisher, the date, and the city of publication. If your source is an article, make note of the title of the article, the author, the title, the series number, the volume number, and the date of the publication. If your source is a site on the Internet, make note of the author, the title of the document, the title of the complete work, the date of publication or last revision, the URL (in angle brackets), and the date that you accessed the site (in parentheses). (As the Internet is changing from day to day, you will want to check a current style manual for the most accurate citation methods.) Sometimes you will be citing a lecture, video, film, radio program, or other less usual source. Consult a style manual [APA, for UNAM theses] to find out what information you will need to complete your bibliography or works cited page. Always, ALWAYS keep track of the page number(s) of any information you intend to use in your paper. When you write your thesis, you will use the above information for the citations in your literature review and other sections of your thesis, and for the reference list at the end. Bibliographic Management Systems Citations and references describe sources of information that you have used. Citations give credit to the sources of information within the text. References give more details about
citations and are listed at the end of a document. Citations and references give credit to the originator of an idea, thus preventing plagiarism, and they enable a reader to retrieve the items to which you refer. Reference management software, also known as citation management software or personal bibliographic management software, helps you to store, annotate, and organize your references and then to present your references in the format you prefer. This software also allows you to insert citations in the required format. Once a reference (citation) has been recorded, it can be used repeatedly. Unfortunately, to use reference management software offline, without an Internet connection, you need to buy and install it on your own computer, and this is often relatively expensive. Fortunately, EndNote, a very sophisticated citation manager that offers the largest number of citation formats and options, has been installed on computers in the UNAM Health Resources Center (HRC). This means you can use it to create your own reference files which you can put on your own storage device. However, in order to update these files or use the information to insert citations in your thesis or create your reference list, you will need to work on a computer that has EndNote software installed. To learn how to use EndNote, you will need to work with one of the UNAM librarians and plan to spend some time reading manuals and practicing. In the long run it will save you time, but it will take time in the short run to explore the use of the product. Some free software exists, but most of it requires reliable Internet access in order to take advantage of all the features. Also, most of these products do not have robust help manuals. Examples of free software are Zotero, which was designed to work with the web browser FireFox, and Mendeley, a newer product. Plagiarism According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to plagiarize means: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as ones own; to use (anothers production) without crediting the source; to commit literary theft; to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. UNAM has an approved policy regarding plagiarism which you should read. Ask the faculty librarian for a copy.
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With computers it is very easy to cut and paste words from one document into another. However, if you do this, or even paraphrase what somebody else wrote, you must give credit to the original source. This means you must be careful to keep track of quotes you think you might use in your thesis, and to cite other sources as appropriate. Remember that plagiarism applies to works in all formats including materials published or distributed online, as well as those that appear as printed or audiovisual materials. Plagiarism has become a problem in many academic settings. Faculty Librarians Librarians are available to work with you. A list of the librarians and contact information is available at http://www.unam.na/library/staff_profiles.html. They may not know as much about a specific topic as you do, but they do know how to systematically find and organize information. Also, they may have better access to the Internet than you do. When you work with a librarian, expect to spend time discussing such matters as your informational needs, the vocabulary that describes your topic, the information you already have, and places you have already looked for information. If, indeed, a librarian needs to run searches for you, remember these are still your searches. You need to be an active partner and to fully understand where and how a librarian searched for the information provided to you.
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3.
Defining Your Topic
In order to write a useful literature review, and a thesis for that matter, you must focus on a very specific, well-defined topic and an answerable question. Begin by thinking in somewhat global terms. Above all, pick a topic that interests you and that you think matters to the field of public health. For example, you may be interested in how nutrition affects the health of the population in Namibia. Start to read secondary literaturebooks, review articles, and other theses related to your general topic. You might begin by reading the following types of materials: A chapter on nutrition in a book in the UNAM collection. For example: Semba, R. D., & Bloem, M. W. (2008). Nutrition and health in developing countries. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press. Journal articles on your general topic which are easily available. For example: Schaible, U. E., & Kaufmann, S. H. (2007). Malnutrition and infection: Complex mechanisms and global impacts. PLoS Medicine, 4(5), e115. After looking at background literature, you will then be able to begin to be more specific in your focus. You might become interested in the topic, The relationship between nutrition and infection in Namibia. Later on you might narrow this even more, perhaps to, Developing a programme to improve the nutritional status of infants born to HIV- or TBinfected mothers in Namibia. Remember that your research topic must be SMART: Specific Measurable
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Attainable Relevant Timely You might want to look for more secondary literaturebooks, review articles, and other theses that focus on pregnancy complications or outcomes in women with HIV or TBto start to think about key concepts and words that will be relevant to your research and thesis. You may also need to look for definitions of terms and statistics. You can start to think about subtopics or themes that you will need to explore. For example: What are issues for the newborn infants of infected mothers? How can nutritional programmes improve infant survival? What are the infants nutritional needs? What programmes have others developed? Now you are getting specific enough that you can start to develop a plan for systematically searching the literature. However, as you move along in your literature-based research or when you start to design your study, you may find that you need to adjust your focus. This might mean that you will need to conduct additional literature searches. As mentioned earlier, doing a literature review is not a linear process.
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4.
Identifying Types of Information Sources
Before you design your systematic searches (see Chapters 2 and 3), you need to think about the type of information resources you will need, as that will help determine which search tools you use. These tools can be categorised as library catalogues or bibliographic databases. Library catalogues list the holdings of a specific library or group of libraries and usually provide access to the record for each item by author, title, and subject. While these catalogues list the journal titles owned by the library, they will not provide information about the articles within each journal. They will list books, but not chapters within books. Many catalogues now reside on computers and are called online public access catalogues (OPACs). Bibliographic databases include descriptive records for the materials contained within a file. They, too, provide access by author, title, and subject, but include records for the content within journals and books and include materials not owned by any specific library. Databases usually consist of machine-readable records. In the past, before computers, these search tools were called indexes. The term index may still be used interchangeably with database. In fact, each record within a bibliographic database is often indexed, which means that it is assigned headings that allow users to access records by subject. In this handbook, bibliographic databases will be referred to as databases. Information resources are often classified as primary, secondary, or tertiary (more details are provided below). The lines between these categories not clear. The important point is that while you might use secondary and tertiary sources in the beginning for background information, to learn about some of the issues that others have considered, and to identity scholars and landmark studies or research methodologies, for the literature review of your thesis you will be expected to find, analyze, and synthesize primary literature. If you include classic studies mentioned in secondary or tertiary materials, you will be expected to read the original report, not just other peoples interpretations. If you cannot obtain the original articles, be sure that you carefully indicate that you have referred to the classic article as presented by another author, as you will be accepting that authors interpretation of the content.
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Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Literature When using primary materials, you should give preference to scholarly articles that have been peer reviewed, that is, published in a journal that is refereed. As the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2009, Peer review) puts it: Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff. Peer review can therefore be viewed as an important extension of the scientific process.... Peer review helps editors decide which manuscripts are suitable for their journals and helps authors and editors to improve the quality of reporting. Some databases (e.g., the nursing and allied health database, CINAHL) allow you to restrict your search to peer-reviewed articles. Other databases (e.g., the medical database, PubMed) do not support this search feature, so you may need to look at the article or in the journal itself to determine if the articles accepted for publication are peer reviewed. This information may be located in many places: The front matter of the publication where they name the editors (often available online) may state that the journal is peer reviewed, or may mention an independent editorial review board. A journals instructions to authors or manuscript submission guidelines may include a description of the journals peer review process. A note at the beginning or end of an article might say that the article was peer reviewed. Information may also be found online via an Internet search for the name of the journal, for example PLoS (Public Library of Science) and peer review. If all this fails, consult with your faculty librarian. Note that even journals that are peer reviewed may have content that does not fit this category; editorials, book reviews, and brief news alerts are examples. Below is a chart that outlines the differences between scholarly and especially peer-reviewed literature, and popular literature.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL (Adapted from Wittenberg University Library, 2010)
Scholarly journals are usually published or sponsored by a professional society or association. There may be a list of reviewers on the first few pages. This type of journal is known as a juried, refereed, or peer-reviewed journal. In such journals, all articles are reviewed by experts before publication, so the journals tend to be considered among the best in their fields.
Some differences between scholarly and popular publications: SCHOLARLY JOURNAL Audience Professionals, professors, graduate students. Indexing Indexed in the Wilson Indexes, or in subject-specific indexes like Biological Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, Art Index, etc. May be included in ProQuest/Periodicals Index Online. Language Field-specific language/jargon requires reader to be in touch with other research in the field. Everyday language accessible to any generally knowledgeable reader. POPULAR MAGAZINE Lay people, people without a college degree in the subject. Indexed in general-purpose indexes like Readers Guide or ProQuest/Periodicals Index Online.
CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL Some differences between the articles in scholarly and popular publications: SCHOLARLY ARTICLES POPULAR ARTICLES
Author
Authors credentials in the field (e.g., institutional affiliation, degrees) are established.
Authors may not have special qualifications for writing article; credentials are not given.
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Bibliography Research
Yes. The author is a researcher; articles are usually based on original research or new applications of others research.
Usually not. The author is usually a reporter; he or she will have done research for the article using secondary or tertiary sources, but not original research such as conducting actual focus groups.
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources The following definitions of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources are excerpted from the University of Maryland Libraries (2010): Primary sources are original materials upon which other research is based.... They are usually the first formal appearance of results in physical, print, or electronic format. They present original thinking, report a discovery, or share new information. The following are examples of primary sources: Dissertations, theses (the sections reporting original research). Journal articles reporting research (not editorials or reviews). Proceedings of meetings, conferences, and symposia. Records of organizations and government agencies (e.g., annual reports, treaties, constitutions, government documents). Survey research.
Secondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources. Generally, they are accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. They are interpretations and evaluations of primary sources. Secondary sources are not evidence, but rather commentary on and discussion of evidence. The following are examples of secondary sources: Textbooks. Literature reviews published as journal articles, books, or sections of theses. 17
Tertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources. The following are examples of tertiary sources: Indexes and bibliographies. Encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Formats: Books, Journals, and Grey Literature The literature may also be categorized by format. You need to think about this when you want to systematically search for information because various search tools may only cover specific formats. Format Search Tools Public Access Catalog) Journal articles Grey literature* Databases (also called indexes), e.g., PubMed Databases or catalogues that cover only grey literature; grey literature is also sometimes included in general databases or catalogues *Note: Grey literature is material not published or distributed commercially. This broad category can include materials such as pamphlets, government reports, statistical documents, white papers, research papers, conference proceedings, dissertations/theses, online documents, technical reports, and working papers. Determining which search tool to use to identify materials in specific formats has become increasingly confusing because as databases and catalogues become electronic and easier to create and control, they have become more inclusive. For example, the UNAM catalogue includes books and grey literature such as theses and government reports, but it does not include journal articles. PubMed is a database of journal articles, but does not include abstracts from meetings even if they appear in a journal that PubMed indexes. ERIC, an education database, includes articles, grey literature, and chapters in books. This means that before you use a database or catalogue, you need to not only know its subject scope but also notice what formats of literature are included.
Books (monographs) Catalogues, now usually electronic, e.g., UNAM OPAC (Online
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5.
Selecting and Using Databases & Catalogues to Find
Information
Selecting Information Sources to Search Although you may refer to secondary literature in the introduction and other sections of your thesis, your literature review should focus on and summarize what the primary literature, and especially the information in peer-reviewed articles, reveals. To find these studies you will need to conduct systematic and comprehensive searches using databases and catalogues. It is important that your review cover a broad spectrum of literature, obtained by searching a variety of databases and catalogues. It can be assumed that you will be using electronic databases and catalogues, which can be stored directly on computers, on CD-ROMS, or on remote computers that require Internet access. Each entity that creates a database or catalogue designs its own search interface, referred to as a search engine. Some databases are available free of charge to everybody (e.g., PubMed), others are available for a subscription fee (e.g., Scopus). Subscriptions are usually paid for by institutions rather than individuals. Since the fees are often very high, no institution subscribes to all available databases. Online public access catalogues (OPACs) generally provide free and open access to all. Available Databases & Catalogues You have access to all of the free and publicly available databases and catalogues, as well as to databases subscribed to by the UNAM Library and those supplied by the World Health Organization (WHO) via Research4Life. Research4Life provides low- and middle-income countries with free or low-cost access to academic and professional databases and peerreviewed content online. It includes access to HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative), which focuses on health. PubMed, which can be accessed HINARI, is one of the primary sources for public health information. However, Research4Life also includes AGORA (focusing on agriculture), OARE (focusing on the environment), and ARDI (focusing on applied science and technology). Membership in these programmes depends upon the economic situation of the country. Namibia currently falls into the Band I group of countries, which means that UNAM users have free access to most of the content in the Research4Life databases. However, access to some of the contents within the portals rests
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with the publishers, who can decide whether to grant Namibia free access to their resources or not. When you sign into HINARI with your UNAM password, you will be presented with the resources available to you. As you think about your topic and the appropriate databases to search, review the list of databases in Section K of the UNAM Health Sciences Subject Tool Kit, Bibliographies, Indexes & Abstracts, available from the faculty librarian. Look at the list of databases in HINARI, Databases and Article Searching (http://extranet.who.int/hinari/en/journals.php). Also talk to your faculty librarian. Access to some of the databases varies over time, and the librarians may be aware of some very specialized databases that would meet your needs.
When selecting the databases you wish to search, consider the following things: Subject scope. Publication types which are included. Dates that are covered. How up-to-date the files are. Access for UNAM students. Availability (or not) of full text documents. mining Which Databases to Search Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews published in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews section of the Cochrane Library (www.cochrane-handbook.org). These reviews can be considered gold standards. They are indexed within the Cochrane Database but also by other indexes, such as PubMed. You have access to the Cochrane Library via HINARI. While the purpose of these reviews is different than a literature review that is part of a thesis, they serve as models regarding the presentation of searches that can be replicated. Authors carefully detail all the sources used for their reviews, as well as their search terms and strategies and the inclusion and exclusion criteria for documents that are retrieved.
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For example, one of the Cochrane Reviews, Nutritional supplements for people being treated for active tuberculosis by David Sinclair (2011, p.8), provides the following details: Research methods for identification of studies We attempted to identify all relevant trials regardless of language or publication status (published or unpublished, in press, or in progress). Electronic searches We searched the following databases using the search terms and strategy described in Table 1: Cochrane Infectious Disease Group Specialized Register; Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); MEDLINE; EMBASE; and LILACS. We also searched the metaRegister of Controlled Trials(mRCT) using tuberculosis and supplementation as search terms. In addition we searched the Indian Journal of Tuberculosis using the keywords given in the search strategy (Appendix A). Searching other resources We also checked the reference lists of all studies identified by the above methods. Note: While the authors do not mention it in this section, they also hand searched a journal that focused on their topic. For the topic Developing a programme to improve the nutritional status of infants born to HIV- or TB-infected mothers in Namibia, these are some of the databases you might choose to systematically search: PubMed (available via HINARI at extranet.who.int/hinari/en/journals.php, or as a publicly available database at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed; see also Appendix C). PubMed is produced by the US National Library of Medicine. It comprises more than 21 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and some online books. It covers more than a hundred years of the literature. All articles except those added in the past few months are fully indexed using a specialized vocabulary called Medical Subheadings (MeSH). PubMed allows users to create very systematic and complex searches using free text terms and phrases as well as a structured and well-defined vocabulary, but it does not include grey literature or conference proceedings. The hierarchical structured vocabulary often lets users enter one term which can be exploded, which means the term will pick
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up all subtopics. It is frequently updated and provides links to full text articles when they are available. Scopus (available via UNAM subscription at www.scopus.com/home.url, not publicly available). Scopus is produced by Elsevier. This database covers journals, conference proceedings, and other literature in biology, physics, chemistry, geosciences, agriculture, medicine, business, social work, and the social sciences. It indexes almost 18,000 titles and more than 50 years of the literature. Coverage is worldwide, with more than half of Scopus content originating from Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. Scopus covers more formats than does PubMed, and it allows users to create complex searches, but it does not have a controlled vocabulary. Consequently users must be extremely careful to think of all keywords and phrases that define their topic and must enter each term individually. In addition to providing abstracts for articles, references that the article used are provided. Scopus supports citation linking, which means that you can find other articles in the database that have referred to the reference that you are looking at. It is frequently updated and provides links to full text articles when they are available. http:/// CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Information) (for individuals at UNAM available via HINARI or EBSCO via the institutional subscription, not publicly available). CINAHL is maintained by EBSCO Publishing. CINAHL provides indexing for more than 3,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health and covers more than 50 years. In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals, and book chapters. CINAHL does not focus as much on clinical care as does PubMed, but it covers the fields of nursing and allied health more deeply than PubMed and Scopus do. It allows you to limit your retrieval to peer-reviewed articles. Like PubMed, it has a controlled, hierarchical vocabulary. Like Scopus, it supports citation linking and includes the references used by the authors of articles. It is frequently updated and provides links to full text articles when they are available. POPLINE (publicly available at www.popline.org). POPLINE is the worlds largest bibliographic database on population, family planning, and related health issues
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including maternal and child health. POPLINE is a project of K4Health (Knowledge for Health). POPLINE provides more than 370,000 records citing worldwide literature in the area of reproductive health. The majority of items are published from 1970 to the present. It covers journal articles, monographs, technical reports, and unpublished (grey) literature. In addition to free text searching, the database can be searched by terms from the POPLINE Thesaurus. It is frequently updated. For users in low- and middle-income countries, POPLINE offers customized searches on request, and provides full text copies for most of the documents cited free of charge. African Index Medicus (AIM) (publicly available at http://indexmedicus.afro.who.int/). AIM is a project of WHO. In order to provide access to information published in or related to Africa and to encourage local publishing, the World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA), produced an international database to African health literature and information sources. It will index any journal of African origin upon request. AIM includes journal articles, books, reports, and studies from international development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and local institutions. It provides access to literature that is often not indexed elsewhere and that was produced in the past several decades. While AIM does not allow as complex search strategies as some other databases, relies on keywords, and does not have help screens, it is still very useful because it has a narrow focus. The frequency of updates is not clear, but it does include articles from the previous year. WHOLIS (publicly available at www.who.int./library/databases/en). WHOLIS is produced by WHO and is the Health Organizations library catalogue. It includes all WHO publications from 1948 onwards, as well as articles from WHO-produced journals and technical documents from 1986 to the present. The catalogue also includes records for other literature in the WHO library collection that support the mission of WHO; which is often grey literature. There is a standardized list of search terms, which is not very sophisticated. WHOLIS is frequently updated and provides links to full text articles when they are available.
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As you can see, each database is unique in coverage and functionality. You need to spend time getting familiar with those that seem like they might help you locate the literature you need for your thesis. Notice that for a systematic search you will not want to use a web-based search engine such as Google. While Google might be very helpful for finding specific items or websites, the set of information it covers is undefined, and it searches for information in a global, relatively uncontrolled manner. Thus you cannot know exactly what you searched or create a search that can be replicated by others even if you use the subset of Google that covers the scholarly literature, Google Scholar (see more about Google Scholar in Appendix D). Publishers collections of materials, such as ScienceDirect, are also not useful for a systematic search. These collections are not broad based, and they change over time. Searching within these files is more like searching within a given journal. There are times when you might search within a publishers collection or a specific journal, especially after you have done a systematic search and have become quite familiar with the literature. You might realize that many of your interesting articles come from several journal titles, and thus decide to browse the contents of those journals to see if there are useful articles you did not discover with the search strategies you used. Or, looking at the references used in some of your key articles, you might identify some journals that are not indexed by any of the databases to which you have access. In this latter case you will find other articles in those journals only by browsing their tables of contents. Learning the Features of Databases As noted previously above each database and associated search engine may have different features. For example, PubMed (which indexes MEDLINE) has the same search features whether you access it via the National Library of Medicine or HINARI. However, if instead you use the search engine provided by EBSCO Publishing to search MEDLINE, the functionality changes. If you use EBSCO to search MEDLINE and CINAHL, you will find that the basic interface looks the same, but different features will be available in each database. For example, MEDLINE does not label articles as peer reviewed, while CINAHL does.
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Additionally, the search engines are routinely modified, so printed instruction sheets become out of date. However, there are generic features, and you will want to explore how they are or are not used in each database using a specific search engine. a Database Tutorials: Most of the producers of complex databases provide short online instructional modules. Many also offer manuals that can be printed or downloaded. Help or tips: Help buttons may be displayed when you are searching online. Often the help topic is related to what you are doing at the moment; it is context sensitive. Search Terms Controlled vocabulary: Does an indexer select terms from a given list of words (thesaurus) to describe each article? Boolean logic: Does the database accept search statements using the Boolean operators OR, AND, and NOT? For example, a search for (tuberculosis OR AIDS) AND pregnant women. Adjacency: How do you say that you want to search for a phrase rather than individual words? For example, the phrase food insecurity. Often you will need to put the phrase in American-style double quotes like this: food insecurity. Truncation: How do you search for words with the same root? For example, the search term pregnan* for pregnant or pregnancy. Field limits: How do you specify that you want to look at terms only if they occur in specific fields in the bibliographic record? For example, if the word tuberculosis needs to be in the title field. Filters: Can you limit results using selected characteristics? For example, English language articles only. Mapping: If you enter one term, does the system automatically pull up related terms? For example if you search for birth control in PubMed, it automatically creates the search contraception[MeSH Terms] OR contraception[All Fields] OR (birth[All Fields] AND control[All Fields]) OR birth control[All Fields].
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Search Features Search boxes: Do you have the option to use an advanced search box? Often the advanced option provides a formatted screen that helps you construct your logical search and lets you see options for limits (e.g., a pull-down box allows you to specify that you want the term to be in the title, and then you can apply the year limit 2000 present). History: Can you look at search strategies you have already used during your current search session? If so, can you combine your search statements to create another strategy? For example, #1 search strategy OR #2 search strategy? Results Features Selecting references: As you review the references your search retrieved, how do you indicate which ones you want to save? Displaying citations: References are displayed in the default format, which often includes only the author, title, and source. How do you also display the abstract or the full record? Saving results: How do you print out or save your results? Printer, email, download, export? Can you specify output in APA format? Revising searches: If a search has unanticipated results, how do you modify your search? Saving your final strategy: How can you keep a record of your exact search?
Personal Account Features Email alerts: This feature allows you to have the database automatically re-run your search whenever there are updates and then inform you of new articles that might be of interest. Saving searches: This allows you to save your strategy online so that you can review and/or re-run the search. Saving results: This allows you to keep selected references in an online file that you can access later.
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Additional Features Related articles: Many databases can look at an article that you have selected as of interest, and search for similar articles based upon word matching. Citations: Some databases will take an article that you have selected and look within their files to see which authors have included the article in their reference list. References: A number of databases include an articles reference list as a part of the article record.
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6.
Defining Concepts and Selecting Keywords and Indexing
Terms
Before you begin to systematically create searches, you need to think about your topic or subtopics and what terms you might use to describe them. Later on, when constructing your searches, you will combine these terms in various ways. You can begin to construct your list of terms by looking at the words or phrases used in the general background readings you have done. At this point you will be picking out keywords, which are free text words (natural language) used by authors. Some databases, for example Scopus, allow you to search on keywords only. When creating your list, you will need to think about singular and plural versions, variant spellings (e.g., British and American), and synonyms (e.g., prenatal and antenatal). Many databases, as well as most catalogues, use controlled vocabularies. These are terms that are listed, often in a hierarchical arrangement, and carefully defined. This compilation of terms is called a thesaurus. The words within the list are known as indexing terms. An indexer or cataloguer reads each document and assigns it terms from the thesaurus. This allows users to systematically search for information using standardized terms. Unfortunately, each database or catalogue may use a unique thesaurus. This means that you must explore the appropriate search terms to use within each database or catalogue. Some thesauri arrange their terms hierarchically so that you can easily expand your search without typing in additional terms. You type in a term and all terms below it are automatically inserted into the search. This is called exploding a term. Since most students will use PubMed, below is an example from their online thesaurus, called Medical Subject Headings (abbreviated as MeSH or mh). If you look up the phrase primary health care in the MeSH thesaurus, you will find the definition, related terms, and its position in the hierarchy of terms.
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Primary Health Care Care which provides integrated, accessible health care services by clinicians who are accountable for addressing a large majority of personal health care needs, developing a sustained partnership with patients, and practicing in the context of family and community. (JAMA 1995;273(3):192) Year introduced: 1974(1972) Entry Terms*: Care, Primary Health; Health Care, Primary; Primary Care; Care, Primary; Primary Healthcare; Healthcare, Primary [*Note: If you enter any of these terms in a search, the term primary health care will be inserted.] Hierarchy Health Care Category Health Services Administration Patient Care Management Comprehensive Health Care Primary Health Care Continuity of Patient Care Transition to Adult Care Patient-Centered Care Refusal to Treat If you search on the phrase primary health care in PubMed and use it as a MeSH term primary health care[MeSH]it will explode: you will get that term and all those below it. You can stop that from happening by entering the phrase as primary health care[Mesh:NoExp]. You can also easily broaden your search by searching comprehensive health care[MeSH], which will include that term and all those indented underneath it. Notice that when you use this database, produced in the United States, you must follow the convention of using double quotes to search for phrases. You can use these terms in more specific ways by saying they must be major subject headings; they must describe the main point of the article. An indexer might use 10 subject headings to describe an article, but will specify only two to three terms as major terms. Using the terms in this more restricted way lets you focus your search. Also, terms may be entered using subheadings. If you are only interested in mortality from
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tuberculosis, you can specify in PubMed that you want to search tuberculosis/mortality. If you are using PubMed, you can go to the MeSH files to easily apply these options when constructing a search. Often you can start to explore the controlled vocabulary terms used in a particular index by looking up one article of interest and then pulling up the full record to see which headings were assigned. For example, see the full list of MeSH terms used to index the following article: Reference: Paul, K. H., Muti, M., Khalfan, S. S., Humphrey, J. H., Caffarella, R., & Stolzfus, R. J. (2011). Beyond food insecurity: How context can improve complementary feeding interventions. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 32(3), 24453. MeSH headings: Diet*, Energy Intake*, Feeding Behavior, Female, Food Habits*, Humans, Infant, Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena*, Interviews as Topic, Male, Malnutrition/epidemiology*, Mothers/education, Nutritional Requirements, Nutritional Status, Prevalence, Questionnaires, Tanzania/epidemiology, Zimbabwe/epidemiology *Note: Terms followed by an asterisk are MeSH major subject headings.
Below is an extract of a search strategy used for searching PubMed. You can see how the authors combined MeSH (mh) headings with subheadings (sh) and keywords in the title or abstract (tiab) to pick up indexed articles as well as articles in which the concept might be secondary and articles so current that they are not yet indexed.
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Article
Gupta A, Nadkarni, G., Yang, W. T., Chandrasekhar, A., Gupte, N., Bisson, G. P., . . . Gummadi, N. (2011). Early mortality in adults initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC): A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One, 6(12), e28691. developing countries (mh) OR africa (mh) OR south america (mh) OR asia (mh) OR developing country (tiab) OR developing countries (tiab) OR africa (tiab) OR south america (tiab) Or asia (tiab) mortality (sh) OR mortality (mh) OR death (tiab) OR deaths (tiab) OR mortality (tiab)
Search Terms 1 Search Terms 2
Search Terms antiretroviral therapy, highly active (mh) OR haart (tiab) Or antiretrovirals (tiab) OR antiretrovirals (tiab) OR antiretroviral (tiab) 3 Legend: The final search strategy was the combination of search terms 1, 2, and 3. Example of Developing a Search Vocabulary The next step is to think of terms that describe your topic. Here is an example of thinking about search terms for the topic Developing a programme to improve the nutritional status of infants born to HIV- or TB-infected mothers in Namibia. You can organize yourself and think about terms in an orderly fashion by creating categories. Begin by thinking of terms that come to mind (keywords). If you know that you will be doing a search in PubMed, also start to explore terms in the MeSH vocabulary. As you work more on the literature review, add and delete terms while doing some exploratory searches and reading a few more articles. Topic Literature reviews Keywords/phrases Systematic review(s), literature review(s) MeSH terms Literature review(pt) Comments pt=publication type; would only use this search when looking for background information
Who
Mother(s), pregnant women, Pregnancy; infants, newborn(s), infant(s), maternal newborn; infants; mothers Africa, developing countries, resource poor setting(s), Namibia (& all other countries of interest) Namibia, Africa (which could be limited to Africa, South of the Sahara or Africa, Southern) Using the MeSH terms for Africa will insert the general term + the names of specific countries 31
Where
Topic Why
Keywords/phrases TB, tuberculosis, HIV, AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome Pregnancy complications, fetal nutrition disorders, mortality, low birth weight, malnutrition, wasting, vitamin deficiencies, etc. food, supplement(s), supplementation, vitamin(s), nutrition, nutritional, micronutrient*, breast feeding
MeSH terms Tuberculosis; HIV infections Infectious disease transmission, vertical; nutrition disorders; mortality; pregnancy complications; etc. Diet therapy(sh); food; food services; nutrition policy; nutritional requirements; nutritional status; nutritional assessment primary health care
Comments MeSH explosion of HIV infections includes AIDS MeSH term nutrition disorders includes more specific nutrition disorders sh=subheading; MeSH term food includes micronutrients
Why
What
How
Compliance, adherence, community, primary care, integrated, vertical, horizontal
You will want to create a document with all your search terms. Remember that if you store this document electronically, you can cut and paste the terms into the search box(es) of the database you are searching. Which terms you ultimately use for your systematic search will depend upon where you find literature that relates directly to your research. For instance, you may want to look at the known effects of nutrition and/or malnutrition on pregnant women with infectious diseases and their offspring in general, but for problems regarding nutrition challenges for infants born to mothers with TB or AIDS you may want to look only at Namibia and other countries that you think have similar issues. You may not find much on community-based nutrition programmes in Africa, so you might want to look at nutrition programs in any country.
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7.
Applying Search Strategies
Now you are ready to start to construct your search strategies. You need to be systematic in your searches so that others can replicate your search and get the same results.
For a complex topic, break up the search to represent the different subtopics that need to be covered. The topic Developing a programme to improve the nutritional status of infants born to HIVor TB-infected mothers in Namibia might be broken up in the following way: The impact of HIV infections or tuberculosis in pregnant women in Namibia and other sub-Saharan countries on their newborns. The nutritional status of infants born to mothers with HIV infections in Namibia and other sub-Saharan countries. Models for providing improved nutrition to infants born to mothers with tuberculosis or HIV in Namibia, other sub-Saharan countries, and other low and middle income countries. Methodologies used to assess nutrition programmes and outcomes.
There will be overlap between the results retrieved with each strategy, but keeping each search focused and well defined will make it easier for you to adjust the search if you get unexpected or useless results. Often people writing systematic reviews create one very complex strategy to avoid having to deal with duplicate citations. But you can deal with duplicate results from different searches by putting the results into a bibliographic management system or by creating a master list of references. Now you can start to think about combining your terms into a strategy. You do this primarily by using Boolean operators: AND, OR, and NOT.
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The AND operator requires that all terms occur: TB AND nutrition. This will narrow a search. The documents you retrieve will be about nutrition as well as TB. You can add any number of terms using the operator AND. This will make the search more precise, but also more narrow. For example, using the argument TB AND nutrition AND infants AND Namibia would require that all four terms be present in the record you would retrieve. The OR operator requires that one or both terms occur: TB OR malaria. This will broaden your retrieval, since only one of the listed terms must occur: the documents you retrieve may be about malaria or TB. The more terms you add using OR, the more records you will retrieve. The NOT (in some databases, AND NOT) excludes terms: TB NOT animals. This will narrow a search and make it more precise, but it may also cause you to eliminate references that might be of interest. For example, animals might be a vector for human disease. In most cases librarians prefer to narrow searches by using the AND operator, which requires that terms be present rather than absent. Now you can start to construct generic searches, which may need to be modified for each database you use. To consider the first subtopic, The impact of tuberculosis or HIV infections in pregnant women in Namibia and other sub-Saharan countries on their newborns, the search may be broken into elements: 1. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome OR AIDS OR HIV OR HIV infections 2. Pregnancy OR pregnant OR mothers OR maternal OR prenatal OR antenatal 3. Sub-Saharan Africa OR Namibia OR Botswana OR Tanzania (Note: If you cannot explode a term to get each country entered, then you need to name each country of interest) 4. Infant OR infants OR newborn OR newborns OR fetal OR fetus OR post-natal
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5. Complications OR pregnancy complications OR infant mortality OR outcome* The elements can then be combined as: # 1 AND # 2 AND # 3 AND # 4 AND #5 This can also be created as one statement, using parentheses in much the same way as you do for algebra. The statements within the parentheses get processed first, and then those expressions get processed from left to right. For PubMed you might create the following search: (HIV[tiab] OR HIV infections/complications[MeSH:NoExp] OR HIV infections[Majr:NoExp] OR acquired immunodeficiency syndrome OR AIDS OR tuberculosis) AND (pregnancy OR pregnant OR mothers OR prenatal OR antenatal) AND (sub-Saharan Africa OR Africa south of the Sahara OR Namibia*) AND (infant OR infants OR newborn OR newborns OR fetal OR foetal OR fetus OR foetus OR postnatal OR post-natal) AND (infant mortality OR complication* OR pregnancy complications) Note: Although PubMed has a controlled vocabulary, you might want to include a keyword in each phrase within parentheses so that you can retrieve articles not yet indexed. In this example, you also might include Namibia* as a keyword, even though it will be included in the MeSH term Africa south of the Sahara. The keyword will retrieve the words Namibian or Namibia if they occur anywhere in the bibliographic record, even if not picked up by an indexer. The example above limits HIV to title or abstract so that it will be a primary focus if the article is not yet indexed. It includes the MeSH heading HIV infections with the subheading complications but does not explode the term, to avoid including all the terms under it in the hierarchy. The search then adds several separate terms to pick up, such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. For Scopus, which has no controlled vocabulary, your search might look like the following: (TITLE (HIV OR acquired immunodeficiency syndrome OR AIDS OR TB OR tuberculosis) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(pregnancy OR pregnant OR mothers OR prenatal OR antenatal) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(sub-Saharan Africa OR Namibia
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OR Tanzania) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(infant* OR newborn* OR fetus OR fetal) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY(complications OR outcome* OR infant mortality)) After you construct your search you will usually want to think about the following: Limits that you can apply. (These may also be called filters.) For example, you might limit (filter) your search by language and years covered, or subsets. Note: If you apply a limit that is also an indexing term from the thesaurus (e.g., human in PubMed), you will eliminate articles not yet indexed. Sometimes you can also search a sub-file within a large database (e.g., AIDS within PubMed). Truncations that would be useful. For example, in PubMed you might enter complication* to pick up the singular and the plural. Phrases that help put terms in context. For example, infant mortality in Scopus. Fields in which the term should be found. For example, if you use HIV[tiab] in PubMed, you will not retrieve articles in which that term is used as part of a journal title or MeSH term. You might discover that your search retrieves far too many irrelevant articles. In that case you can consider narrowing the search using some of the techniques provided by the University of Washington Health Sciences Library (2012, Refine Searches, Hints for Improving Search Strategies). Always keep in mind that you need to adjust your strategy to the database you are searching.

Choose the most specific subject headings or most significant keywords. Use subheadings to narrow the focus of the subject heading if appropriate. Increase the number of search concepts that are ANDed together [combined using the Boolean term AND]. Use fewer synonyms for terms. Make a term from the thesaurus (i.e., the subject heading list or controlled vocabulary) the main focus of the article (select Major in PubMed) [select Focus in CINAHL].
Limit to review articles. Limit your search to type of article, language, age group, current years, etc. Ask for significant words to be in the TITLE of the article.
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You also might find that your search is too narrow, in which case you might use the tips from the University of Washington (2012, Refine Searches, Hints for Improving Search Strategies) to broaden your search:

Look for misspellings in your strategy. Decrease the number of concepts searched. Try a broader search term. Use a search term from the thesaurus (i.e., MeSH or subject heading list) for searching. Use the Related Articles [or Similar Articles] feature. Check for missing or incorrect field qualifiers. Remove terms that are unlikely to be used by an author. Replace terms that are too general or too specific. Increase the number of synonyms or alternatives for a term. Use a truncation symbol at the end of a term to pick up variant endings. Try running the search on earlier years [back files] of the database. Try a different database.
Each database search page will be different, so you need to check out the help screens or help sheets for each database you use. In many cases you will want to go to the advanced search screen, which will provide structured input forms that will help you construct your search. Save your search strategies, including the database and date searched.
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Before you finalize your final strategy for each topic, you might want to review this checklist, adapted from the Duke University Medical Center Library (2012, Searching, The Search Strategy):

All concepts are included in the strategy. All appropriate subject headings are used. Appropriate use of explosion. Appropriate use of subheadings and floating subheadings. Use of natural language (keywords) in addition to controlled vocabulary terms. Use of appropriate synonyms, acronyms, etc. Use of truncation and spelling variation as appropriate. Appropriate use of limits such as language, years, etc. Use of field searching, such as publication type, author, etc. Appropriate use of Boolean operators. No line errors: when searches are combined using line numbers, the numbers refer to the searches intended. Indexing of relevant articles has been reviewed. Search strategy has been adapted as needed for multiple databases.
By Authors If you discover authors who focus on topics related to your thesis, consider doing a search by the authors name. Most search engines allow you to restrict searches to the author field; however they may have different conventions for how the name is entered. For example, PubMed uses the authors last name followed by initial(s): Smith AB. Other indexes may include the authors first name: Smith Abe B. Other Search Methods
Searches within journal titles Sometimes you will find a journal that focuses directly on your topic (e.g., AIDS Care), and you will want to browse within that journal title.
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Searches of references within key articles or books (snowballing) When you find articles on your topic, you may want to look at the articles to which they refer. If you find a key article in an articles reference list, you may then check out the references in that title, and so forth. Searches of cited references Using cited references is the reverse process of snowballing. You take an article and check out who has listed that article in their bibliography. One commercial index, Science Citation Index (which is within the Web of Science), created this type of index. Now a number of online products support this technique for looking up related articles. Searches of related references PubMed allows you to look at references that are related to articles that you retrieve in the abstract format. PubMed determines if articles are related by looking at all the words used in each record and matching those to the article that you selected. Examples of Search Strategies An instruction guide, PubMed at UNAM, is included in the appendices to this handbook (see Appendix C). When you review it, you will learn how you can construct searches within that database. Below is a search example from a Cochrane Review titled Nutritional supplements for people being treated for active tuberculosis (Sinclair, Abba, Grobler, & Sudarsanum, 2011). The search example shows how the authors used and combined terms in various databases. Terms in capital letters were taken from the controlled vocabulary for that database.
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Database
Search Set 1 2 CIDG SR tuberculosis dietary supplements CENTRAL tuberculosis MEDLINE tuberculosis EMBASE tuberculosis dietary supplements LILACS tuberculosis dietary supplements
DIETARY DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS SUPPLEME NTS
macronutrient food supplement* food s supplement* micronutrient s zinc 2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5 1 AND 6 FOOD, FORTIFIED macronutrients MICRONUTRIENTS TRACE ELEMENTS VITAMINS vitamin* zinc iron 211/OR 1 AND 12 FOOD, FORTIFIED
DIET macronutrients SUPPLEMENTATION MACRONUTRIENT micronutrients zinc 2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5 1 AND 6 -
4 5 6
macronutrien micronutrient$ ts MICROVITAMIN NUTRIENTS SUPPLEMEN T-ATION TRACE ELEMENTS VITAMINS vitamin* zinc iron 211/OR 1 AND 12 Limit 13 to human IRON ZINC TRACEELEMENTS 29 1 AND 10 Limit 11 to human -
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
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8.
Selecting Articles and Reading Critically
Whenever you start to review the references you have retrieved, keep your research question, as well as what you want to include and exclude, visible so that you stay focused. Skim the titles and abstracts (when available) of documents to eliminate articles that are not related to your topic. You probably already did some of this when you first looked at the results of your searches and decided which references looked interesting. Retrieve the documents of potential interest. Skim the documents that still seem to be relevant. For research articles notice the structureintroduction, methods, results, and discussionand read the abstracts, noticing the purpose, methodology, results, and conclusion. For all documents notice the authority of the authors and the quality of the publication in which the information appeared. Again, eliminate articles that do not meet your basic criteria.
Strategies for Reading and Taking Notes You should have some specific questions in mind as you read. These questions will help you concentrate and deal with the material in an active manner. It may help to create a record of each item you read. Purugganan and Hewitt (2004) suggest using a template for taking notes when reading research articles. When you read an article, pertinent book chapter, or research on the Web, use the template below (or something similar) to make an electronic record of your notes for later easy access. Put quotation marks around any exact wording you write down so that you can avoid accidental plagiarism when you later cite the article. If you are looking for specific information, you do not need to summarize the whole article or book. Template for Taking Notes on Research Articles (Adapted from Hewitt, 2012, and Purugganan & Hewitt, 2004, pp. 46) Complete citation (authors, date of publication, title of book or article, journal, volume #, issue #, pages):
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Template for Taking Notes on Research Articles (Adapted from Hewitt, 2012, and Purugganan & Hewitt, 2004, pp. 46) Electronic source information (DOI [digital object identifier] if available, otherwise URL, name of database or document number, and date retrieved): Keywords: General subject: Specific subject: Hypothesis: Methodology: Results: Evidence: Summary of key points: Context (how this article relates to other work in the field; how it ties in with key issues and findings by others, including yourself): Significance (to the field; in relation to your own work): Important figures and/or tables (brief description; page number): Cited references to follow up on (cite those obviously related to your topic AND any papers frequently cited by others, because those works may well prove to be essential as you develop your own work): Other comments: The University of Melbourne (2012, Critical Reading) suggests the following approach to note taking:
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Keep in mind that although taking notes is time consuming, much of it will be directly usable later. For this reason, it is useful to take notes using your computer, rather than in longhand. This can also contribute to a sense of the progress of your thesis, rather than thinking of the reading as being somehow separate from the writing. When you take notes, you may like to try splitting your notes page in two. Write your summary of the authors conclusions and evidence in one column. In the other half of your page, note your reactions to what you have read. Comment on methodology. Make connections between your project and what you are reading. Compare and contrast the views of other authors. Make a note of what you think about the material. Even comments like These arguments are confusing or I dont understand this may be useful. This two-column system has several advantages: It keeps you thinking about the major issues and ideas. You will be able to differentiate between your views and the work of others, thus reducing the risk of plagiarism (your material is on one side of the page; everything used from the other side of the page must be acknowledged). You are more likely to filter material and therefore take a more critical approach. An alternative to the two columns is to use two colours of penone for your ideas and the other for quotes and paraphrases. If you prefer writing your notes on file cards, this may be a better choice. You will, of course, design your own method for keeping records. You may want to include information the above authors did not suggest. For example, was the article peer reviewed? It is very important to keep in mind that you need to carefully analyse and evaluate all the documents you will use for your literature review. When you write the review, synthesizing the information you have gained from selected studies, you will be adding comments about the validity, reliability, and credibility of the information and how it relates to your thesis. You will not be just writing descriptive comments about each document you read. For the primary research articles that you include, you will need to use what you have learned about research methods to evaluate each study. If methodology is used that you do not understand well, you will need to use textbooks to review it. You will find some of the
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appraisal tools developed by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) in Appendix G. These include tools for qualitative studies, review articles, randomized controlled trials, and cohort studies. In addition to the systemically recorded notes you created for materials you read in depth, you will have copies of all the documents you retrieved. You can annotate and highlight the information that pertains to your thesis on these copies. Strategies for Evaluating Online Information It is important to read information from the Internet critically. The University of Melbourne (2012, Critical Reading) has this to say about material found on the Internet: Most information that appears on the Internet has not been peer reviewed, unlike many journal articles and most scholarly books. Therefore it is very important that you read these writings critically and objectively.... When you are looking at material online, keep a critical focus. You might want to ask some questions like these: Who are the authors of this piece? What do you know about them? What is the perspective of the writer? (Consider contexts of gender and culture.) Why does the site exist? How old is the material? Are the arguments logical? Is there reliable evidence to support the authors contentions? Is the material correctly and fully referenced or linked to other online information?
Subtopics and Emergent Themes You will need to divide your literature review into sections: the introduction (how your literature review will be organized), topics and subtopics, and the conclusion. Within the subtopics you will need to organize your review according to themes. Some of these themes will emerge as you read the documents youve retrieved. It will probably help you organize your review if you indicate what subtopic each study supports and an appropriate theme that it suggests. For example, if you are writing about the topic Using the primary health care system to support a nutrition programme for infants, you might need to consider horizontal,
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vertical, and integrated systems. These might be three separate themes within the subtopic Delivery systems.
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9.
Writing the Literature Review
Introduction: In this section of the literature review, you introduce the topic, set the context for the review, and let the reader know how your review will be organized. In some cases you may be stating commonly accepted information, so although you need to cite a source, you do not need to evaluate the evidence. Topics and Subtopics: These sections analyse and synthesize all the information you have gathered to put your study in context and to establish how it answers an important question. Although the review will rely on the sources you read, the structure of the review will be dictated by you. It is important that you present the concepts in an order that makes sense to readers and create a coherent document. It may help to make an outline before you begin to write. Depending upon how this section is subdivided, subtopics may have their own introductions, reviews, and conclusions. Conclusion: Here you summarize what you learned, discuss unanswered questions, and link the information to your thesis topic.
You will be following the guidelines presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), sixth edition. (See Appendix E for more information about APA style. See Appendix F for a sample paper edited following APA style.) Some Guidelines As a general rule, the first time you cite a reference in the main body of your literature review, you should give a short appraisal of the quality and value of the reference to your review. The next time you mention the reference, you do not need to repeat this appraisal. (Aveyard, 2010, p. 94)
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Here is an example from an article by Leclerc and Kensinger (2008, p. 209): For example, Ohman, Flykt, and Esteves (2001) presented participants with 3 3 visual arrays with images representing four categories (snakes, spiders, flowers, mushrooms). In half the arrays, all nine images were from the same category, whereas in the remaining half of the arrays, eight images were from one category and one image was from a different category (e.g., eight flowers and one snake). Participants were asked to indicate whether the matrix included a discrepant stimulus. Results indicated that fearrelevant images were more quickly detected than fear-irrelevant items, and larger search facilitation effects were observed for participants who were fearful of the stimuli.
Synthesize the information you found. Compare and contrast the research studies and other published material that you have described. At this stage you move beyond a straightforward description of the papers towards an integration and interpretation of what the papers mean as a whole, taking into account any similarities and inconsistencies. (Aveyard, 2010, p. 129) Here is an example from Leclerc and Kensinger (2008, p. 209: A similar pattern of results has been observed when examining the attention-grabbing nature of negative facial expressions, with threatening faces (including those not attended to) identified more quickly than positive or neutral faces (Eastwood, Smilek, & Merikle, 2001; Hansen & Hansen, 1988). The enhanced detection of emotional information is not limited to threatening stimuli; there is evidence that any high-arousing stimulus can be detected rapidly, regardless of whether it is positively or negatively valenced (Anderson, 2005; Calvo & Lang, 2004; Carretie et al., 2004; Juth, Lundqvist, Karlsson, & Ohman, 2005; Nummenmaa et al., 2006) From this research, it seems clear that younger adults show detection benefits for arousing information in the environment. It is less clear whether these effects are preserved across the adult lifespan. The focus of the current research is on determining the extent to which aging influences the early, relatively automatic detection of emotional information.
You might find that you have individual codes or whole themes that do not support each 47
other. The first thing to do is to consider the context of each paper, together with the strengths and limitations of the research approaches undertaken. You need to focus on your critical appraisal of each paper at this point, as you need to assess the strength of the evidence in addressing your particular question. The rationale behind a review is that all the relevant literature is reviewed so that you can see each piece of literature in the context of the other available literature, and that differences and similarities in the results can be compared. When you encounter literature that presents a different picture to that given by the previous literature you examined, it is important to document this carefully. Consider why this may be so. What were the differences in the pieces of research undertaken that may account for the different findings? Refer back to the critical appraisal you have undertaken. Is one piece of evidence stronger than the other? (Aveyard, 2010, p. 131) Another example from Leclerc and Kensinger (2008, p. 210: On the basis of the existing literature, the first two previously discussed hypotheses seemed to be more plausible than the third alternative. This is because there is reason to think that the positivity effect may be operating only at later stages of processing (e.g., strategic, elaborative, and emotion regulation processes) rather than at the earlier stages of processing involved in the rapid detection of information (see Mather & Knight, 2005, for discussion). Thus, the first two hypotheses, that emotional information maintains its importance across the lifespan or that emotional information in general takes on greater importance with age, seemed particularly applicable to early stages of emotional processing.
Critically analyse the relevant literature in relation to the research questions stating the content of the literature, the implications of this knowledge, any gaps or deficiencies, any inconsistencies or conflicting viewpoints. (University of Melbourne, 2012, Conducting a Literature Review)
Ensure you make your own interpretations and that you have written a critical and evaluative review. (University of Melbourne, 2012, Conducting a Literature Review)
Avoid plagiarismunderstand the guidelines and acknowledge the source of ideas and 48
quotations of other researchers. This adds authority and credibility to your work. (University of Melbourne, 2012, Conducting a Literature Review) Writing Tips The University of Melbourne (2012, Writing Your Review) provides these tips for writing your literature review: A common error in literature reviews is for writers to present material from one author, followed by information from another, then another. The way in which you group authors and link ideas will help avoid this problem. To group authors who draw similar conclusions, you can use linking words such as: also additionally again similarly.
When authors disagree, linking words that indicate contrast will show how you have analysed their work. Words such as: however conversely on the other hand nonetheless
will indicate to your reader how you have analysed the material. At other times you may want to qualify an authors work (using such words as specifically, usually, or generally) or use an example (thus, namely, to illustrate). In this way you ensure that you are synthesising the material, not just describing the work already carried out in your field. Another major problem is that literature reviews are often written as if they stand alone, without links to the rest of the thesis. There needs to be a clear relationship between the literature review and the hypothesis and methodology to follow. At the end of your review, include a summary of what the literature implies. You need to do this in a way that clearly links with your own hypotheses and methodology.
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Here is an example from Leclerc and Kensinger (2008, p. 213): Although these studies included both positive and negative stimuli, it is important to note that the positive and negative stimuli were not of equivalent arousal levels (fearful faces typically are more arousing than happy faces; Hansen & Hansen, 1988). Given that arousal is thought to be a key factor in modulating the attentional focus effect (Hansen & Hansen, 1988; Pratto & John, 1991; Reimann & McNally, 1995), in order to more clearly understand emotional processing in the context of aging, it is necessary to include both positive and negative emotional items with equal levels of arousal. In the current research, therefore, we compared young and older adults detection of four categories of emotional information (positive high arousal, positive low arousal, negative high arousal, and negative low arousal) with their detection of neutral information. The positive and negative stimuli were carefully matched on arousal level, and the categories of high and low arousal were closely matched on valence to assure that the factors of valence (positive, negative) and arousal (high, low) could be investigated independently of one another.
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10. Conclusion
Hopefully the information in this handbook has provided you with an overview of what you need to do in order to write the literature review section of your thesis. You can easily find many additional resources to help you successfully complete your review: Books in the UNAM Library: Search on the words thesis or dissertation or literature review in the title, or use subject headings such as Dissertations, Academic. LibGuides on various topics via the Internet: For example, you can search on Google for libguides and literature review*; libguides and APA style. Other online materials discussing literature reviews: For example, you can search on Google for step by step and literature reviews*. For each database you use, check out the tutorials and help screens. For example, HINARI provides tutorials on a great variety of subjects in a number of formats. *Note: When you type words within double quotation marks in Google, the words get searched as a phrase. And if you cannot find the information you need, be sure to consult with your faculty librarian.
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References
American Psychological Association. (2010a). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. American Psychological Association. (2010b). Figure 2.1. Sample one-experiment paper. In Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (pp.4153). Washington, DC: Author. Available from website at http://supp.apa.org/style/PM6ECorrected-sample-papers.pdf American Psychological Association. (2012). The basics of APA style [Tutorial]. Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx Aveyard, H. (2010). Doing a literature review in health and social care: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. CASP International Network (n.d.). Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) at the Public Health Research Unit. Appraisal Tools [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.caspinternational.org/?o=1012 Duke University Medical Center Library. (2012). Conducting systematic reviews [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/sysreview Garson, G. D. (2002). Guide to writing empirical papers, theses, and dissertations. New York: Marcel Dekker. Gocsik, K. (2005). Researching your topic [Webpage]. Retrieved from Dartmouth University website at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/research.shtml Hewitt, J. (2012). ENGI 600: Template for taking research notes. Retrieved from Rice Center for Engineering website at http://rcel.rice.edu/engi600/
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International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2009). Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Ethical considerations in the conduct and reporting of research: Peer review. Retrieved from: http://www.icmje.org/ethical_3peer.html Last, J. M. (Ed.). (2007). Oxford dictionary of public health [Online version]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leclerc, C. M., & Kensinger, E. A. (2008). Effects of age on detection of emotional information. Psychology and Aging, 23(1), 20915. Plagiarize. (n.d.). In Merriam-Websters online dictionary (11th ed.). Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize Primary health care. (n.d.). In MeSH database. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh?term=primary%20health%20care Purdue Online Writing Lab. (2012). Annotated bibliographies [Webpage]. Retrieved from Purdue University website at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/ Purugganan, M., & Hewitt, J. (2004) How to read a scientific article. Unpublished manuscript. Houston, TX: The Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication, Rice University. Retrieved from: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~cainproj/courses/sci_article.pdf Sinclair, D., Abba, K., Grobler, L., & Sudarsanam, T. D. (2011). Nutritional supplements for people being treated for active tuberculosis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 11, CD006086. University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries. (2007). CINAHL preconcepts [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.library.health.ufl.edu/help/cinahl/preconcepts.htm
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University of Maryland Libraries. (2001). Primary, secondary and tertiary sources [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.lib.umd.edu/guides/primary-sources.html University of Melbourne, University Library (2012). Literature reviews [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://unimelb.libguides.com/lit_reviews University of Namibia. (2011). Student Guide: Postgraduate Studies. Retrieved from http://www.unam.na/prospective/postgraduate_guide2011.pdf University of Washington Health Sciences Library. (2011). APA style guide [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://libguides.hsl.washington.edu/apa University of Washington Health Sciences Library. (2012). PubMed at the UW [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://libguides.hsl.washington.edu/pubmed Wittenberg University Library. (2010). Scholarly vs. popular articles [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www6.wittenberg.edu/lib/help/schol-pop.php Additional Sources American Psychological Association. (2012). APA style. www.apastyle.org/index.aspx Cronin, P., Ryan, F., Coughlan. M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing, 17, 3843. Deakin University. (n.d.). Reviewing the literature [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/research/thesisreview.php Garrard, H. (2011). Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination. London: Sage Publications.
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Leenaars, M., Hooijmans, C. R., van Veggel, N., ter Riet, G., Leeflang, M., Hooft, L., Ritskings-Hoitinga, M. (2012). A step-by-step guide to systematically identify all relevant animal studies. Laboratory Animals, 46(1), 2431. Mongan-Rallis, H. (2006). Guidelines for writing a literature review. Education Department. University of Minnesota Duluth. Nova Southeastern University Alvin Sherman Library. (2010). APA Style (6th ed.) -- Library Guide [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://nova.campusguides.com/apa Ontario Public Health Library Association (OPHLA). (2008). Critical appraisal of research evidence 101 [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/providers/program/pubhealth/ oph_standards/ophs/progstds/pdfs/caore.pdf Taylor, D. (n.d.). The literature review: a few tips on conducting it [Webpage]. Retrieved from the University of Toronto, Health Sciences Writing Centre, website at http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review World Health Organization. (2008, February 25). Systematic reviews of evidence [PowerPoint presentation]. Retrieved from http://www.gfmer.ch/400_Publications_En.htm World News. (2012). Literature review [Video]. Retrieved from http://wn.com/literature_review
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Appendices
Note: Hard (printed) copies of the appendix items listed below will be distributed to University of Namibia (UNAM) affiliates as a supplement to this handbook. All other users may obtain copies by going directly to the sources indicated below. CDs with copies of some additional materials will also be made available to UNAM students and faculty in public health. Appendix A: Example of a Systematic Review. Extract from Lewin S., et al. (2010), Lay health workers in primary and community health care for maternal and child health and the management of infectious diseases. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 17(3), CD004015.
Appendix B: Example of an Introduction to a Research Article. Extract from Weiser S.D., et al. (2010), Food insecurity as a barrier to sustained antiretroviral therapy adherence in Uganda. PLoS One, 5(4):e10340.
Appendix C: PubMed at UNAM. Request copies from the University of Namibia Library. Appendix D: Google Scholar. Request copies from the University of Namibia Library. Appendix E: Overview of APA Style. Available at http:// libguides.hsl.washington.edu/apa Appendix F: Example of an Article Edited Using APA Style. Figure 2.1 in American Psychological Association. (2010), The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (pp. 4153). Washington, DC: Author. Also available at http://supp.apa.org/style/PM6E-Corrected-Sample-Papers.pdf
Appendix G: 16 CASP Tools for Evaluating Research. Available at http://www.caspinternational.org/?o=1012 G1. Case Control G2. Cohort Study G3. Economic Evaluation G4. Qualitative Study G5. Randomized Controlled Trial G6. Systematic Review
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THE THESIS LITERATURE REVIEW

A Handbook for University of Namibia Postgraduate Students in Public Health

The Thesis Literature Review

Thesis Literature Review Handbook v.1

2012 University of Washington/I-TECH

Thesis Literature Review Handbook v.1

Introduction to the Literature Review

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Starting Your Literature Review

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Defining Your Topic

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Identifying Types of Information Sources

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL (Adapted from Wittenberg University Library, 2010)

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Selecting and Using Databases & Catalogues to Find

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Defining Concepts and Selecting Keywords and Indexing

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Search Terms 1 Search Terms 2

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Compliance, adherence, community, primary care, integrated, vertical, horizontal

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Applying Search Strategies

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DIETARY DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS SUPPLEME NTS

DIET macronutrients SUPPLEMENTATION MACRONUTRIENT micronutrients zinc 2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5 1 AND 6 -

Thesis Literature Review Handbook v.1

Selecting Articles and Reading Critically

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Writing the Literature Review

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Thesis Literature Review Handbook v.1

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