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Now you’ve come so far that you have got the results of your search. What’s in your net so far?

Have you found too few results in your search, so that almost none can be included? Or have you found so many results that it is not feasible to go through them all. Or perhaps you have not found any relevant results? In the sections below, you can read some tips about how to adjust your search based on its results.

Too few results?

Below, you’ll find tips on how to adjust your search if you’ve received too few results.

General:

Have you spelled the search words correctly? A database usually searches for exactly what you input. If you have spelled something incorrectly, you risk getting very few results.
Go through your limitations. If you have for instance limited searches to Full Text, you have also limited yourself to the material that is available as Full Texts in the database itself. Thus, you have chosen to disregard the articles that you do not have access to as Full Text in the database—which is usually most of the literature in a reference database. You can often find the full text in Oria, and order it from the library.

AND/OR

Check that you have combined AND and OR correctly. Write AND and OR with capital letters, some databases are not able to parse the operators if they are written in lowercase.
Are there any search components you could try to remove? In a literature study, you seldom search for all of your themes but limit yourself to 2-3 components to avoid an excessively narrow search.

Text words

Have you truncated your search words? For instance, student* so that you search for the word in both singular and plural (for student and students).
Are there more synonyms which might be relevant? If you for instance want to search for “experiences”, words like “views”, “perceptions”, and “attitudes” often work as synonyms.
Are there broader or more general terms that could be used, for example “patient” instead of “cancer patient”?
If a term has an abbreviation, remember to search both for the full term and its abbreviation (for example “European Union” and “EU”).
Sometimes a word can be spelled in several ways, for instance “well being”, “wellbeing”, and “well-being”, and you might have to search with several spellings.
Sometimes you need to search in both British and American English, as the spelling of a word can vary. For instance, “organization” (US spelling) and “organisation” (UK spelling).
If searching for phrases renders your search too narrow, you can try using proximity operators instead. You can find more information on how these work in 3.6. Deep dive: Proximity Operators.

Subject terms

Have you used a too-specific subject word? Look at the subject word structure in the database’s thesaurus and investigate whether a more general term can be used instead.
Are there more subject words that could be relevant?
Does the database have an “explode” function for its subject words? Is it activated? If not, look at the subordinate terms in the thesaurus and see if it might be relevant to use the explode function to include them in your search.

Too many results?

Can you narrow down your research question/problem?
Look at your research question/problem and assess whether you could add another search component to your search.
Remember to check truncation. Should you for example search for “kid OR kids” instead of “kid*”, which also elicits hits for “kidney”?
Check if the synonyms are precise enough and not too general.
Assess whether you should use fewer and more discipline-specific databases.

"If you have searched in the most important sources, tried various synonyms, your search words are correctly combined, you’ve searched for both text words and subject terms and performed appropriate limitations, you can be satisfied with the search.”
Our translation of the quote:
«Hvis du har søkt i de viktigste kildene, har prøvd deg frem med ulike synonymer, søkeordene er riktig kombinert, du har søkt på både tekstord og emneord og gjort hensiktsmessige avgrensninger, kan du si deg fornøyd med søket.»
Kirkehei, I. & Ormstad, S. S. (2013). Litteratursøk. Norsk Epidemiologi 23(2), 141-145