Sports Medicine

Research is an iterative process, and sometimes your search phrase doesn't work like you thought it would. When this happens there are two strategies you can employ:

• broaden your search: add synonyms, truncation, delete unnecessary words
• narrow your search: add more parts to your search, use very specific and/or scientific terms for diagnoses, parts of anatomy, or populations

When you get zero (or very little) search results > Broaden.

Usually very little search results is caused by a search phrase that is much too specific. It is also possible that very little has been written on your topic, or you are using the wrong database for your topic area, but it is usually best to begin fixing this problem by broadening your search phrase.

A search phrase that is too specific:

"high school gymnasts" AND "biofeedback therapy" AND "treat knee injuries"

This phrase has several long phrases with specific wording enclosed in quotation marks, meaning that the database will retrieve only articles with those exact phrases, worded in that exact way.

That same search phrase, now edited to be more broad:

("high school" OR teenage OR adolescent OR youth) AND gymnast AND "biofeedback therapy" AND (knee OR "anterior cruciate ligament") AND injur*

Break apart too-specific phrases and create parentheses sets of alternate synonyms so you can account for different words authors might use to talk about your concept. Also delete unnecessary words like "treat" or "effective", almost all articles in research databases will be about efficacy or outcomes, so you don't need to include those in your phrase, they're likely just limiting your results to articles with those specific terms for the concept of "outcomes". Use truncation when databases allow it to search for singulars and plurals of a concept, as well as variations of a word with different endings

When you get too many (or irrelevant) search results > Narrow.

Usually getting too many search results (more than 2,000) is due to your search phrase being too vague or too broad. Below is an example of how to narrow a search using multiple methods, Try only one of these methods at a time, re-running the search each time so that you can find that sweet spot of not-too-narrow and not-too-wide.

A search phrase that is too broad, and how to narrow it:

"brain injur*" AND rehabilitation

This search phrase does not include a specific diagnosis or intervention as OR-ed synonyms. It also does not include a specific population, which would narrow the number of article results for any search.

That same search phrase, now edited to be more specific:

("traumatic brain injur*" OR concussion) AND "cognitive rehabilitation" AND (children OR youth OR "grade school")

Technically, including synonyms broaden the search, but also adding a new, additional requirement in the form of a population will narrow the number of article results. Adding another variable, possibly outcomes more specific than "efficacy", such as "return to sport", would narrow the pool of article results even further.

And as always, feel free to reach out to your librarian for help in building search phrases!