How to run an efficient literature search
Literature reviews usually fail for one specific reason: searches written in everyday language instead of indexed technical terminology. "Older people who feel lonely" returns very little; "loneliness older adults" returns hundreds of relevant studies.
Strategies that work
- Use controlled vocabulary. Consult MeSH (for health) or the thesaurus of your field to find the standardised term. These systems exist precisely to resolve vocabulary ambiguity.
- Combine two to four concepts. A single term returns useless volume; too many terms return nothing. The sweet spot is the intersection of two or three core concepts.
- Start with the most cited, refine with the most recent. Highly cited work gives you the conceptual map of the field; recent work shows the current frontier and the gaps you can occupy.
- Do backward citation searching. Found a central paper? Read its reference list — it is a bibliography curated by someone who already did the work.
- Then do forward searching. Look up who has cited that paper since. This is how you catch the recent literature that keyword searches miss.
About the Crossref database
Crossref is the agency that registers DOIs and aggregates metadata deposited directly by publishers. It covers international journals, conference proceedings and some books. It is extremely reliable for citation metadata — which is why we use it for the reference generator.
Limitations worth knowing: Crossref does not index most theses and dissertations, does not cover books without a DOI, and not every record carries an abstract, because many publishers do not deposit one. It is not a substitute for a search in specialised databases — for health, complement with PubMed; for the social sciences and education, with ERIC, PsycINFO or Scopus, to which your institution likely has access.
Recommended workflow
- Define two or three core concepts from your research question.
- Search here sorted by "most cited" to map the field.
- Repeat sorted by "most recent", filtering to the last five years.
- Click "Cite" on the relevant articles and build your list in the citation generator.
- Export everything as .doc or .ris and import into Zotero or Mendeley.