Consumer Science Literature Review Tips

Was this helpful?

Choosing a database

  1. Your subject will probably be covered by many databases, especially here at UW Madison. Choose one from the database list linked at the left, or explore others on the complete list of databases by subject.
  2. In addition to subject, consider the approach or "focus" of your topic.
  3. Also consider these questions about database coverage because the answers can have a dramatic impact on your results.
    • Does it cover popular, trade or research literature?
    • Does it cover the time period you need?
    • What materials are included? (books, journals, government documents, newspapers, dissertations, book reviews)
    • How often is it updated? Monthly? Weekly? Daily?
    • What is the geographical coverage of the database? (international, national or local)
  4. Then, it's really important to spend time thinking about your search strategy. What are important keywords? Does the database have a thesaurus to help identify key terms?
  5. Adjust your search strategy based on your results. How can you limit or expand your search? How can you find better, more focused results?
  6. If your results aren't what you expected, ask a librarian for more suggestions.

Database list

This list of databases includes the ones most relevant for consumer science topics. It contains databases that cover general social sciences, business, consumer behavior, education, health, law, news and data resources.

A complete list may be found using the Libraries' E-Resource Gateway.

Choosing keywords

Write down your topic as a sentence or question to help clarify your ideas.

  • Example: Are there any benefits of holding children back from kindergarten for a year?

Decide on the important ideas/concepts and choose keywords and/or phrases for the search.

  • Example: children | holding back | kindergarten

Then, think of synonyms or terms that mean the same because different articles often use different terminology.

  •  Example: The concept of holding back might be 'hold back' = 'held back' = 'delay entrance' 

Thesarus terms

Usually you use a thesaurus to find synonyms for words when you are writing. A journal database thesaurus works in a similar way. It helps you think of synonyms for keywords and can also help you build your search.

A thesaurus will help you look up a term to get new ideas for keywords and see where your term fits with other terms. Perhaps a broader or more narrow term is a better fit.

  • Example: ERIC includes a thesaurus term "School Readiness". But there are also terms such as "Learning Readiness" and "School Entrance Age". Knowing this helps you consider whether one of these narrower terms might work better for your search.

A thesaurus will also help you power search. If you use the thesaurus' suggested term you will also automatically retrieve articles that use any keywords with the same meaning.

  • Example: ERIC assigns the term "Aptitude Tests" to any article about testing school readiness. If you build your search with this term, you will retrieve all the articles that are about school readiness testing regardless of the words used by the articles' authors.

Look for a button labeled "Thesaurus" or "Index" to see the terms available.

Search Techniques

Use truncation

Save time and use the truncation symbol or wild card to retrieve variant word endings.

  • Example:  child* retrieves child, child's, children, or children's
Use AND and OR

Use AND to connect ideas/concepts together. Usually narrows your search.

  • Example: child* AND kindergarten retrieves articles that use both terms

Use OR to connect keywords that mean the same. This broadens your search.

  • Example: hold* back OR held back OR delay entrance OR school readiness retrieves articles that have any of these terms.

Putting it all together your search might look like this...

child* AND kindergarten AND (holding back OR held back OR delay entrance OR school readiness)

Refining the search

Too many results?

When your search brings back more results than you want, try these techniques available in almost all databases:

  • Use the database "limits" such as publication year, language or type of article (review article, scholarly article, etc.).
  • Require one or more keywords to be in the article title to only get articles where keywords are a major focus.
  • Use Proximity Operators (near, adjacency) to require keywords are close together to get articles where the terms have more relevance to each other.
Too few results?

When your search brings back fewer results than you want, try these techniques available in almost all databases:

  • Include more synonymous terms. These can be found by looking at results for other keywords or using a thesaurus.
  • Separate phrases to allow for words to come between the phrase or reverse the order of the words.
    • Example: school AND readiness still retrieves 'school readiness' but also gets an article with the phrase 'a child's readiness for school'.
  • Use truncation to search for all variations of a word's root.
  • Choose a different database.