There are 4 very important search strategies to employ when searching databases:
Turn your research question into a search strategy:
Example: What affects the longevity of C. Elegans?
1. Find only the key concepts within your research question.
What affects the longevity of C. Elegans?
2. Think of synonyms for each concept.
3. Broaden your search to related organisms.
Nematode: C. Elegans / Trichinella / roundworms
Radishes: Turnips / Parsnips / Carrots
Truncation allows you to search for multiple forms of a word. Examples:
bacteri* = bacteria, bacterium, bacterial
mutat* = mutation, mutate, mutated
Beware of truncating too short and getting irrelevant things. For example bact* would include too many words and all would not be related to your topic like the drug Bactrim!
NOTE: PubMed auto-truncates and does not use the * symbol
Combine SYNONYMS with the OR operator
c elegans OR nematode
longevity OR lifespan
Combine CONCEPTS with the AND operator
Note: For some databases if you combine concepts in one search box it will assume you want the AND operator between them.
To search for phrases use quotation marks.
"salt chemotaxis"
“life span”
"mutation rates"