Describing your literature search

Sometimes, research assignments require that you describe your literature search.
How should you go about it?
Here is a list of features that you might want to include when describing how you found the literature required by your assignment.

• When the search was performed

Since literature is published every day, it's a good idea to mention when your search was performed.
This might explain why your paper doesn't mention this brand new study that was just published...

• Databases used 

Which databases did you use to do your search? This information (as well as search terms and details about your search equations) will enable your reader to reproduce your literature search. Or to explain why they find different documents than the ones you found...

• Search terms

You can just list them all here and then, or just mention the concepts you used and tell your reader to refer themselves to a complete list of keywords you will have added to an appendix.

• Your search equation

While describing your keywords, you can start describing how your search equation worked, including the truncation symbols or quotation marks you used in your search equations (i.e.: "I used the search equation gamif* AND "motivational affordance" ").

Don't forget to add anything else about your search method that would be useful to reproduce your search (i.e.: "search terms were used for all fields", "in addition, bibliographies of recent literature reviews were cross-referenced", "to supplement the search, we consulted expert opinions for recommendations", etc.).

If you used a complex series of equations, producing a screengrab of your search history might be a good idea. Here is how:

- First, make sure that you delete anything not relevant to your final search from the search history, by clicking the check-box next to each undesirable search and then clicking "delete searches".

- Then, press the button "PrtScn" (or equivalent) on your keyboard.

- Paste the image in your Word document.

- Click on the image. A new menu, "Format" appear. Click on it. Then click the "Crop" button.

- Move the black cursors around the image until only your search history is visible. Press enter when you're satisfied.

- And you're done!

• Selection or exclusion criteria

How did you limit your search? If you used specific selection or exclusion criteria, it can be interesting to mention them.

Those could includes:
- Limiters you used to refine your pool of results (a limitation by date, to only articles for which the full-text was available, to a specific category of subject...);
- Or simply how you selected the articles (i.e.: "we excluded papers that focused on only one dimension of sustainability or did not relate to facility location at all").

• Number of documents found

If you're about to explain how you categorised and excluded documents from your first selection, then it can be a good idea to explain how many documents were initially found versus how many you kept after applying your selection criteria.
But this is by no means mandatory.


Do note that you definitely don't have to use all of those features in order to describe your literature search.
Use your judgement for what makes sense in your  particular context, and ask your tutor if you're in doubt.

One last piece of advice: do yourself a favour... and write all of this information about your search while doing your search!
You might not have to use it all, but it's always best to have too much information rather than not enough...

Good luck!