Lecture No.

7
Research Methodology and Biostatistics Course

Literature Search &

Referencing Style
Aryandhito Widhi Nugroho, M.D., Ph.D.
Neurosurgeon, Dr. H. Chasan Boesoirie General Hospital, North Maluku, Indonesia
Lecturer, Dept. of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Khairun University
WTF IS THIS TOPIC????
Literature Search - The Anatomy –
“Skeleton”
• Constructing an appropriate question
• Using the appropriate database
 Constructing an appropriate question
• The right question must be answerable
• Be specific, do not be too broad!
• Example:
Too broad More answerable Better yet!
What is the association What is the association What is the association
between helmet usage between helmet usage between helmet usage
and prevalence of and the prevalence of and the prevalence of
traumatic brain injury? traumatic intracranial traumatic intracranial
bleeding? bleeding among motorcycle
rider?
 Constructing an appropriate question
• PICO (Patients, Intervention, Comparator, Outcome) table can be
utilized to design question

Included Excluded
Patients/population Motorcycle rider Non-motorcycle rider
Intervention Helmet usage
Comparator Non-helmet usage
Outcome Traumatic intracranial Non-traumatic intracranial
bleeding (EDH, SDH, ICH, bleeding, other traumatic
IVH) complication
Using the appropriate database(s)
• What type of information is needed?
• What type of articles do you need?
• What will you do with the information you gather?
• Database: bibliographic  journals, newspaper articles,
conference proceedings, government publication
• Types of literatures that are the focus of systematic search:
• Peer-reviewed literatures: published scientific articles
• “Grey” literatures: reports, fact sheets, conference
proceedings
 Description
MEDLINE • National Library of
http:// Medicine’s (NLM)
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ premier bibliographic
pubmed/ database
• PubMed is a free search
engine, maintained by
the National Center for
Biotechnology
Information (NCBI)
• + 19 million citations
EMBASE (Excerpta • Comprehensive
Medica Database) biomedical and
http://www.embase.com/ pharmacological
database
• Maintained by Elsevier,
subscribed users only
• + 20 million citations
What is included
• Academic journals
covering the fields of
medicine, nursing,
dentistry, veterinary
medicine, the health care
system, preclinical
sciences
• International in scope
• Active, peer-reviewed
journals
• Broad international scope
 Description What is included
Cochrane Reviews • Database comprised of formal, • Topics including
http://www.cochrane.org/ extensive systematic reviews medications,
reviews/ that often contain meta- surgery,
analysis technology,
• Maintained by The Cochrane education
Collaboration • Articles are also
• Offers free access to abstracts indexed in
and some full-length articles PubMed
• Designed to facilitate clinical
decision-making in healthcare
Cochrane CENTRAL (The • Collection of databases in • Focuses on
Cochrane medicine and other healthcare randomized or
Central Register of specialties controlled
Controlled Trials) • Uses a search interface called research article
https:// OVID
www.cochranelibrary.com/
central/about-central
The Physiology – How it Works?

• Getting specifics – the basics of “how to”

• Refining your search!
Getting specifics – the basics of “how to”
• Quickstart
• Type a word or phrase into the query box, including subject,
author, and/or journal
• Click on the search button or press the “Enter” key
• Results will be displayed in summary format
• Be specific with the keywords!
Getting specifics – the basics of “how to”
• Advanced searching in PubMed – MeSH terms and database
• Medical subject headings (MeSH)
• A controlled vocabulary to index journal articles
• Hierarchy called a “tree”
• PubMed would retrieve every article containing any of the
terms located the hierarchy.
Getting specifics – the basics of “how to”
• Advanced searching in PubMed – MeSH terms and database
• MeSH database features
• 25,000 descriptors, updated weekly, reviewed annually
• Browser: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/
Refining your search
• Replace general search terms with more specific terms
• Add terms or combine search terms with connector words: AND,
OR, or NOT using upper case letters (called Boolean logic)
• AND between terms returns only records that contain all search terms
• OR between terms returns all records that contain any search terms
• NOT between search terms returns only records that contain the first
term and not the second
• Truncate terms. Place an asterisk (*) at the end of a string of
characters to search for all terms that being with that string
• E.g., trauma* will find all terms with the letter t-r-a-u-m-a  traumatic,
traumatology, traumatizing, etc.
 Refining your search
• Use a wildcard ( “?”) to replace a letter where spelling variation is
possible, e.g. “behavio?r” will find “behaviour” or “behavior”
• Use the “limit” option in to limit citations by age, sex, etc.
• Use the “advanced search” option to look up an indexed term
Search term(s) Results
traumatic intracranial hemorrhage OR bleeding 577,499
traumatic intracranial hemorrhage OR bleeding AND helmet 195
traumatic intracranial hemorrhage OR bleeding AND helmet AND motor* 46
traumatic intracranial hemorrhage OR bleeding AND helmet AND motor* 27
(Results by year 2012-2022)
Summary
 Use PICO to come up with an answerable question
 Decide what type of literature needed to search in order to
adequately answer your question
 Decide which database is most practical to start your search
 Pick out key terms from your question to enter into the
database’s search box
 Refine your search as necessary by combining terms and/or
using limiting options that the database provide
Harvard Referencing Style
• Uses references in in the text and in a reference list at the end
• In general, each author name in the text must also appear in the
reference list, AND every work in the reference list must also be
referred to in the main text
• All reference details are important, even full stops and commas!
• In-text references should give the author’s family name and the
year of the work’s publication
• If you quote or paraphrase, you should also give a page number
• Source:
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/d
ocs/harvard-referencing-guide.pdf
Journal articles
Format
Author’s family name, Initial(s) year of publication, ‘Title in single
quotes’, Journal Title in Italics, vol. ##, (volume number) no. #,
(issue number) pp. #-# (page numbers the article covers).
 In-Text
Material Type Citation Reference List Entry
Journal article - Print (Habel Habel, C 2009, 'Academic self-efficacy in ALL: capacity-
2009) building through self-belief', Journal of Academic
Language and Learning, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 94-104.

Journal article from web, (Ticker Ticker, CS 2017, 'Music and the mind: music's healing
freely available from an 2017) powers', Musical Offerings, vol. 8, no. 1, article 1,
e-journal’s website viewed 21 May 2017.
Journal article with DOI (Jeeyoo et Jeeyoo, L, Ji-Eun, L, Yuri, K, Lee, J, Lee, J-E & Kim, Y
(Digital Object Identifier) al. 2017) 2017, 'Relationship between coffee consumption and
stroke risk in Korean population: the Health Examinees
(HEXA) study', Nutrition Journal, vol. 16, pp. 1-8,
DOI:10.1186/s12937-017
 In-Text
Material Type Citation Reference List Entry
Journal article in (Muldoon Muldoon, K, Towse, J, Simms, V, Perra, O, & Menzies, V
press/advance online 2012) 2012 ‘A longitudinal analysis of estimation, counting
publication skills, and mathematical ability across the first school
year’, Developmental Psychology, advance online
publication, DOI:10.1037/a0028240.
Journal article with two (Darwin & Darwin, A & Palmer, E 2009, 'Mentoring circles in
authors Palmer higher education', Higher Education Research and
2009) Development, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 125-136.
Journal article with three (Maier, Maier, H, Baron, J & McLaughlan, R 2007, 'Using online
authors Baron & roleplay simulations for teaching sustainability
McLaughla principles to engineering students', International
n 2007) Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 23, no. 6, pp.
1162-1171.
 Material Type In-Text Reference List Entry
Citation
Journal article with four (Grosso et Grosso, G, Stepaniak, U, Micek, A, Stefler, D, Bobak, M
or more authors al. 2017) & Pajak, A 2017, 'Coffee consumption and mortality in
three Eastern European countries: results from the
HAPIEE (Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In
Eastern Europe) study', Public Health Nutrition, vol. 20,
no. 1, pp. 82-91.
Conference publications
Format
Author’s family name, Initial(s) year of publication, ‘Title of paper’,
in Editor’s initial(s) Editor’s family name (ed.), Title of conference,
Conference Organiser/Publisher, Place of publication, pp. xxx–xxx.
 Material Type In-Text Citation Reference List Entry
Conference paper (Goldfinch 2005) Goldfinch, M 2005, 'A pilot discussion board for
published in book of questions about referencing: what do students say
proceedings and do?' in G Grigg & C Bond (eds), Supporting
learning in the 21st century, proceedings of the
2005 Annual International Conference of the
Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors
Aotearoa/New Zealand (ATLAANZ), Dunedin, New
Zealand, pp. 179-191.
Conference paper – (Crisp, G, Hillier, M Crisp, G, Hillier, M & Joarder, S 2010, ‘Assessing
online edited & Joarder, S 2010) students in Second Life – some options’, in CH
proceedings Steel, MJ Keppell, P Gerbic, & S Housego
(eds), Curriculum, technology & transformation for
an unknown future. Proceedings of the 27th Annual
ASCILITE Conference: Curriculum, technology and
transformation for an unknown future, Sydney, pp.
256–261, viewed 15 July 2011, .
 Material Type In-Text Citation Reference List Entry
Conference (Butler 2009) Butler, D 2009, 'Using video worked examples to
presentation – enhance learning in a first-year mathematics
unpublished course', paper presented at the 4th ERGA
conference, University of Adelaide, 24-25
September.
Newspaper or magazine article
Format
Author's family name, Initial(s) OR Publication Name year, 'Title of
article', Title of news or magazine site, date of publication OR
volume and issue, page numbers if applicable, viewed date (if
online publication), .
 Material Type In-Text Citation Reference List Entry
Newspaper or (Robertson & Robertson, D & Kyriacou, K 2010, 'Skating on thin
magazine article Kyriacou 2010) ice', Advertiser, 20 November, p. 9.

Newspaper or (Banks 2010) Banks, D 2010, 'Tweeting in court: Why reporters

magazine article must be given guidelines’, The Guardian, 15
viewed online December, viewed 25 November 2015, .
Newspaper or (Evening Give the publication name in place of the author’s
magazine article Express 2014) name. For articles viewed online, include date
with no author viewed and URL.
Evening Express 2014, ‘Firearms officer drove at
60mph on wrong side of road in
Aberdeen’, Evening Express, 22 May, p. 12, viewed
18 April 2017, .
Webpage
Format
 Author's family name, Initial(s) OR Authoring body year, Title of
webpage (in italics), Title of website, viewed date, .

Remarks
• It is best, wherever possible, to reference the specific page or
section of a website, rather than the whole website
• If a website document doesn’t have an author (individual or
corporate), start with the title of the document in italics followed
by the date. If there is no date, use n.d.
 Material Type In-Text Citation Reference List Entry
Webpage (World Health World Health Organization 2014, WHO
Organization recommendations for routine immunization –
2014) summary tables, World Health Organization,
viewed 1 May 2014, .
Summary
 Acclimatize yourself to the Harvard reference style
 Pay attention to detail
 Always double-check your writing