Search Relevance
After using your list of terms to search an index or abstract database,
browse through the items retrieved.
Consider the following questions to help you decide if an item is relevant:
 Does the item give an overview of your topic?
Does the item cover one aspect or some aspects of your topic?
Does the item cover the situation in the country or place that you are covering?
Does the item cover the situation in another country or place?
As you browse the first 50 or more items in your search:
You many find too many irrelevant items, too few relevant items or no relevant items
If you find only a few to be relevant out of the many retrieved and that you are
getting too many irrelevant items, you can reduce the number by:
- using Boolean AND to add more concepts to the search statement narrowing the search,
like using 3 concepts instead of 2 concepts
(aged or elderly) AND policy AND care
instead of (aged or elderly) and policy
- removing synonyms from search statement
e.g. (aged OR elderly)
instead of (aged or elderly or senior citizens)
- using Boolean NOT to exclude terms from search statement
e.g. (aged or elderly) NOT (disabled or handicapped)
Use NOT with caution as you could exclude relevant items unknowingly
- limiting the search to the appropriate subject heading terms or thesaurus terms as found in a
highly relevant record
e.g. elderly.sh and caregivers.sh
- limiting by another criteria like publication year, language, material type or document type
depending on what is available for a particular database and what you want to cover in your search
(aged AND care) and LA=english
where LA=english limits the search to only English language items
If you retrieve too few relevant items,
you can increase the number retrieved by:
- adding synonyms to search statement
e.g. (aged OR elderly) instead of (aged)
- using less concepts in search statement like start with 2 or 3 concepts first
e.g.
(aged OR elderly) AND care
If you retrieve no relevant items
- You may be using the wrong terms or keywords
- You may be using terms which are too specific, try using broader terms
- You may be using the wrong database or wrong source, e.g. using PsycInfo when you need sociology-related materials or for very current topics check newspaper indexes or newspapers rather than indexes for journal articles, books or book chapters
- There may be no published materials on your topic and you may need to change your topic
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