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Systematic Review Tutorial

Test Your Search

Video Guide:

00:00-8:39 - Drafting a Search in PubMed

8:40-10:00 - Using Benchmark articles to test

10:01-12:23 - Drafting and testing a search in Web of Science

Translating Search Syntax

Database Controlled Vocabulary Field Tag options (title/abstract/subjects)
PubMed

MeSH - Automatically Explodes

[Mesh:NoExp] = will not explode topic

[Title/Abstract]

[Title]

[Abstract]

[MeSH]

placed after term or phrase

Web of Science Limited and broadly defined "web of Science categories" which are not searchable like MeSH or other index terms.
  • TS=Topic*
  • TI=Title
  • AB=Abstract
* = Topic searches title, abstract, keywords plus, and author-supplied keywords
CINAHL (Ebsco)

MeSH

CINAHL headings

TI - Title

AB - Abstract

SU/MM/MH - Subject

PsycINFO (Ebsco)

MeSH

PsycINFO Thesaurus

TI - Title

AB - Abstract

DE/MM/MH - Subject

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest) Sociological Thesaurus

TI - Title

AB - Abstract

SU - Subject