Library Guides: Systematic Reviews: Glossary of terms

Title Systematic Searching

Glossary of terms

This glossary explains key terms used in literature searching to help you find and understand academic sources more easily. It’s a handy reference for anyone navigating research and looking to improve their search skills.

Terms	Meanings
Abstract	A brief summary of a longer piece of text, typically found at the beginning of journal articles, outlining the main points or findings.
Advanced Search / Advanced Searching	A search function in library databases that allows users to apply filters and combine multiple criteria for more precise results. Advanced searching strategies often include the use of keywords, thesaurus terms, operators, truncation, and wildcards.
Boolean Operators	Words (such as AND, OR, NOT) used to combine keywords orphrases to broaden or narrow search results.
Controlled Vocabulary	A standardised set of terms used in a database to index and search for content. Examples include subject headings and thesauri like MeSH.
Databases	Online collections of records of published (and sometimes unpublished) works, such as journal articles, conference proceedings, and theses. These databases are primary sources for literature searches.
Grey literature	Research and information released outside of traditional commercial or academic publishing, such as reports, theses, and conference proceedings.
Information Specialist	An Academic Librarian assigned to support the students and staff from particular Schools and/ or Faculties, who can be contacted for assistance with literature searching.
Keywords	Words or phrases that are likely to appear in relevant articles and are used to search for such articles. Effective searches use combinations of keywords and operators.
Literature search	The process of examining bibliographic databases (by hand or online) to find relevant literature. The terms "database search" and "online search" are often used interchangeably with "literature search".
MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)	A controlled vocabulary used by the National Library of Medicine for indexing articles in PubMed and other databases.
Phrase searching	A search technique that can be used to ensure your results are as relevant as possible. It can be where more than one word forms the search term. Place double quotation marks around keywords that are phrases, i.e. two or more words. For example: "social media"
Proximity Operators	Symbols or words used in search queries to specify how close together terms must appear in the results (e.g., NEAR, WITHIN).
Scoping Review	A type of evidence synthesis that aims to map the key concepts, types of evidence, and gaps in research on a particular topic or area, providing an overview of the breadth and depth of available literature without typically assessing the quality of included studies
Search terms	Words or phrases entered into a database or search engine to find relevant literature. These can include keywords, synonyms, and controlled vocabulary terms.
Subject Headings / Indexing Terms	Designated words or phrases used to describe the subject content of items in a database, assigned by indexers or artificial intelligence. These are part of the controlled vocabulary, e.g. MeSH.
Systematic review	A methodical and comprehensive literature search covering a large amount of material, aiming to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all relevant studies on a specific topic.
Synonyms	Alternative words or phrases with similar meanings, used to broaden search strategies and capture more relevant results.
Thesaurus	A tool within databases that provides controlled vocabulary terms, including broader, narrower, and related terms to help refine search strategies, e.g. MeSH.
Truncation	A search technique most often used to simultaneously search for plurals and different but related word endings. The truncation symbol is usually the asterisk * and it replaces one or more letters at the end of the search term entered.
Wildcards	A search technique most often used to search for different spellings of a word and is usually represented by the question mark ? or a hash sign # or sometimes the asterisk *. The wildcard symbol replaces either none or one letter in the middle of a word.