Exploratory Searching vs. Literature Review Searching
In most cases, identifying and writing about a topic requires an initial exploration of information sources. This process can be used to contextualize the research problem [i.e., obtain relevant background information that makes it easier to understand or explain the topic] and to help determine the study’s overall design and scope of analysis. Exploratory searching can also help establish where your ideas fit within what is already known about the problem. Sources may include reviewing the readings listed in the course syllabus and/or searching the Libraries’ catalog, Google Scholar, or general resources such as Wikipedia, government agencies or organizational websites, and national news outlets.
However, an initial search for information differs significantly from the search process applied to writing the literature review section of your paper.
"Choosing a Topic." Online Writing Lab, Purdue University; Currie, Lea, Frances Devlin, Judith Emde, and Kathryn Graves. "Undergraduate Search Strategies and Evaluation Criteria: Searching for Credible Sources." New Library World 111 (2010): 113-124; Joo, Soohyung, and Namjoo Choi. "Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Selection of Online Library Resources in Academic Tasks: Usefulness, Ease-of-use, Resource Quality, and Individual Differences." Library Hi Tech 33 (2015): 272-291; "Literature Reviews." The Writing Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Porter, Brandi. "Millennial Undergraduate Research Strategies in Web and Library Information Retrieval Systems." Journal of Web Librarianship 5 (2011): 267-285.
Effective Search Strategies for Literature Reviews
A search strategy refers to the deliberate, systematic process for locating and retrieving sources of information that support the rationale for studying the research problem. It enables you to confidently identify and use the appropriate academic resources and databases [i.e., scholarly search engines] needed to locate information and then maximize their effectiveness in addressing your specific needs as a researcher.
The search process begins with identifying concepts related to the research problem and breaking them down into terms or short phrases and their synonyms. These are the "keywords" you enter into databases to search for information. Most databases include an advanced search option with tools that help you further refine the discovery process and retrieve the most relevant results. An effective search strategy also encourages you to search for additional sources pertaining to your initial results. This includes thinking about new or related terms that can be used to expand, narrow, or further clarify the search for information, help determine important relationships among the works of various scholars [i.e., what are the approaches they have taken to study the topic], and help reveal gaps in how the research problem has been studied in the past.
In the social and behavioral sciences, these overarching principles should be applied to the literature review search process:
Practical Strategies for Searching Databases
Search Process Resources
I. Library Catalog
Going back to the concept of approaching the search process as being analogous to climbing a mountain of literature, a good starting point is using the Libraries’ catalog to seek information from print or digital books, U.S. government documents, research reports, and audio-visual sources. Writing an effective literature review requires that you explain what scholars have already said about the research problem. For example, books found in the library catalog can provide essential background information about the topic and, by perusing the table of contents or reading the introduction, obtain an understanding about how the topic has been studied in the past. This helps refine your topic and lays a foundation for considering how to approach searching for more specific information about the research problem.
II. Multidisciplinary Database Searching
The USC Libraries subscribe to several databases that provide simultaneous searching of research published across a wide variety of disciplines. These databases facilitate understanding the topic from multiple disciplinary perspectives, thereby, improving the opportunity to locate studies that offer a unique or innovative way to contemplate the research problem.
The most comprehensive and user-friendly multidisciplinary database that the Libraries subscribe to is ProQuest Multiple. Among the advantages to using the ProQuest to begin building your review of the literature is that: 1) the contents are updated daily, 2) it covers the core scholarly journals of dozens of disciplines, 3) about eighty percent of the content is available full-text, and 4) ProQuest features an easy-to-use citation formatting function.
ProQuest Search Steps
NOTE: These general search steps, including using the advanced search option, can be applied to most of the databases available from the USC Libraries. Many databases of these also have the equivalent of the My Research personal account function.
Other Multidisciplinary Databases
III. Discipline-specific Database Searching
The USC Libraries subscribe to more than 900 specialized databases that provide access to research literature published in almost every area of study taught at USC. Discipline-specific databases supplement what can be discovered in multidisciplinary databases by offering a deeper and more precise and critical exploration of the scholarly literature on a topic.
There are two main ways to locate discipline-specific databases:
IV. Perspective-taking
There are a variety of databases that provide access to studies that can help you understand and contemplate the implications of a research problem as seen through the eyes of others. The databases listed below can be used to contextualize your literature review search based on whether these groups have been adequately considered in prior studies.
NOTE: The Libraries search engine as well as some library databases include a Saved Searches [a.k.a., My Favorites] feature that facilitates saving search queries using a link to register and create a personal account. Creating a personalized account allows you to review prior searches whenever you log into the database. This feature also helps you keep track of your search history should you want to replicate the search in another database or to re-run the search in the same database at a later date.
ANOTHER NOTE: Many databases offer the ability to create automatic e-mail notifications or RSS feeds that notify you when any new studies matching your previous search results are added to the database. This can alert you to new articles related to a given subject area or published by a certain author. Automatic notifications can be set up to be received on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. This feature is useful for keeping up-to-date with research as soon as it becomes available, thereby, eliminating the need to search a database multiple times to see if any new content has been added.
DON'T STRESS! REACH OUT TO A LIBRARIAN
If you have applied the various literature review search strategies described above and you are still struggling to find relevant information about your topic, please ASK A LIBRARIAN. Librarians at USC stand ready to recommend the most appropriate databases to use. They can help you design effective literature review search strategies to obtain the most relevant research results. They can also assist with determining how to synthesize the research literature you find so that you can write an effective literature review section for your paper, including help with how to properly format your citations. The link above displays three ways you can contact a librarian--chat service available from 10:00am - 6:00pm, Monday through Thursday and from 12:00pm - 4:00pm on Fridays [except holidays], emailing questions to librarians at anytime, or a directory you can use to email a subject expert librarian to schedule an appointment to discuss your research project [in-person or over Zoom].
Faix, Allison. "Assisting Students to Identify Sources: An Investigation." Library Review 63 (2014): 624-636; Currie, Lea, Frances Devlin, Judith Emde, and Kathryn Graves. "Undergraduate Search Strategies and Evaluation Criteria: Searching for Credible Sources." New Library World 111 (2010): 113-124; Developing an Effective Search Strategy. Paul V. Galvin Library, Illinois Tech; Hoeber, Orland, and Dale Storie. "Graduate Student Search Strategies within Academic Digital Libraries." International Journal on Digital Libraries 25 (2024): 303-316; Gionfriddo, Michael R. Et al. "Back to the Basics: Guidance for Designing Good Literature Searches." Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy 20 (April 2024): 463-468; Joo, Soohyung, and Namjoo Choi. "Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Selection of Online Library Resources in Academic Tasks: Usefulness, Ease-of-use, Resource Quality, and Individual Differences." Library Hi Tech 33 (2015): 272-291; Biddix, J. Patrick, Chung Joo Chung, and Han Woo Park. "Convenience or Credibility? A Study of College Student Online Research Behaviors." The Internet and Higher Education 14 (July 2011): 175-182; Khurshid, Zohaib et al. "Literature Search Strategies in Dental Education and Research." Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences 16 (2021): 799-806; Porter, Brandi. "Millennial Undergraduate Research Strategies in Web and Library Information Retrieval Systems." Journal of Web Librarianship 5 (2011): 267-285.
Searching Library Databases vs. Google Scholar
Library Databases -- contain searchable collections of published sources that include multiple options for limiting or clarifying search results. It is easy to determine where content has been acquired from [e.g., journals, magazines, books, etc]. Many library databases have a discipline-specific focus or cover research published about a particular region of the world or provide access to unique types of sources, such as, videos, statistical data sets, or archival materials. Searching may be difficult to understand for beginning researchers.
Google Scholar -- a multidisciplinary search engine that links to a wide variety of text-based materials, though there is no transparency concerning where content has been pulled from. Therefore, be aware that not everything it finds is actually scholarly [e.g., course syllabi]. Google Scholar is very easy to search and contains a vast amount of content. However, it only has a few advanced search options, making it difficult to limit or refine search results that can often number in the thousands.
ESSENTIAL FEATURES |
LIBRARY DATABASES |
GOOGLE SCHOLAR |
Content |
Most focus on scholarly sources; may cover specific subject areas, regions of the world, languages, or unique resources such as videos, data, or archival materials. |
Does not have the ability to focus search results by subject area, language, or type of source; content is limited to text-based sources. |
Usage |
Some require knowledge of using advanced search techniques; less helpful for novice users due to complex search protocols and limited coverage of sources, making it more difficult to quickly find relevant research. |
Easy to use because it has a simple, clean interface; does not require any special search skills. |
Full Text Sources |
Most offer direct access to full-text materials through subscriptions paid for by the USC Libraries; sign-in from the Libraries' web page first will immediately connect you to the content of all of the library's databases when you click a link. |
Provides links to the full text of publicly available materials; copyrighted material can only be accessed if you first sign into the Libraries' proxy server from the Libraries' homepage; may encounter limited access or a pay wall for items not paid for by the USC Libraries. |
Scope of Content |
May specialize in content representing certain historical time periods, primary source documents, digital archives, or publications in languages other than English. |
Searches only secondary sources; limited coverage of materials published in languages other than English; focuses on items published during the past forty years or so, with limited access to sources published earlier. |
Search Options |
Include advanced search options that facilitate performing complex queries, filtering results by various criteria, and conducting more exact searches using multiple search terms. |
Search options are limited to using quotes to search phrases and limiting results by date of publication or a specific range of years. |
Specialized Tools |
May feature specialized tools tailored to the needs of researchers in specific disciplines, such as the ability to analyze data, export results to citation management systems, save prior searches, create notifications, or collaborate with other researchers. |
Does not offer specialized tools, with the exception of having a more comprehensive "cited by" feature that can be used to discover how many times a source has been subsequently cited by other researchers in other publications [see search tip below]. |
Quality Control |
Maintain rigorous quality control measures, such as peer review processes, editorial oversight, and content curation by subject experts that help ensure the accuracy, reliability, and credibility of all content. |
Lacks rigorous quality control measures; materials are compiled by a automated web crawler that searches content available from publicly accessible online sources; not all content is scholarly. |
Publication Details |
Additional details are provided for each publication, including standardized subject terms assigned by academic experts; many include an abstract [summary] of journal articles and research reports. |
No details about the publications are provided. |
Avdic, Anders, and Anders Eklund. "Searching Reference Databases: What Students Experience and What Teachers Believe that Students Experience." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 42 (2010): 224-235; Google for Academic Research. University Library, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Finding Information: Google vs. Research Databases: What’s the Difference? Brown University Library; Use Google Scholar: Library Databases vs. Google Scholar. Library, Howard Community College; InfoSkills @ TiU: Google Scholar vs. Library Databases. Tilburg University Library; Karlsson, Liisa et al.. "From Novice to Expert: Information Seeking Processes of University Students and Researchers." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 45 (2012): 577-587.
Using the "Cited By" Feature in Google Scholar
An effective way to expand any search you perform is to copy and paste into Google Scholar the title of a relevant journal article, book, or research report you find while searching a database. This strategy is called citation tracking. It provides the means for determining if anyone else has subsequently cited the item in their research by clicking on the "Cited by" link below the record. The number in the link [e.g., Cited by 145] shows how many times the item you found has been referenced by other scholars in other publications. You can also search within the publications that cite the article, book, or research report by checking the "Search within citing articles" box and adding additional terms to narrow your search within the cited by results.
Despite Google Scholar's search limitations, using the cited by feature can be an excellent way to build your search results by finding related and more recently published studies based on sources you have already discovered. This strategy also facilitates learning how and in what ways research has evolved over time or how a topic has progressed across different research practices. Note that some library databases also include a cited by feature, but they are limited to only citing other sources indexed within the database. Use Google Scholar instead because it has the most comprehensive coverage of source types [e.g., journal articles, book chapters, books, research reports, government publications, conference proceedings, etc.].
How to Use Google Scholar. Whitewater and Rock Campus Libraries, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater; Google Scholar: Using Cited By. Edmon Low Library, University of Portland; Noruzi, Alireza. “Google Scholar: The New Generation of Citation Indexes.” Libri 55 (2005): 170–180.
Document Your Searches
You may think you'll remember where you searched, what terms you used when searching, and where that one item appeared that looked really good, but you forgot to write it down. Perhaps. But to avoid the aggravation of forgetting these details while performing literature review searches, you should document the search process, not only so you remember how you searched for information and what resources you used, but also because your professor may ask you to explain how you located the materials cited in the literature review section of your paper.
When searching, keep a record of the following:
Searching Solutions: The Search Log. Research Guides. University of Southern California Libraries; Lefebvre C. et al. Chapter 4.5: Documenting and Reporting the Search Process. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, Vversion 6.5.1, 2025;; Advanced Library Search Strategies. University Library. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; PSYC5131: Meta Analysis: Theory and Practice--Developing & Documenting Your Search Strategy. Course Guide. University of Connecticut.