LibGuides: Search Help: Common Search Problems: My results are not relevant

Intro

Here are some techniques that will help you handle a search that is finding too many irrelevant results:

Sort your results so that the best stuff comes to the top.
Review your results to figure out if there's a common theme to the irrelevant stuff that keeps popping up.
Do more background research on your topic to make sure you know the jargon that is often used in your discipline.
Try a different database.

Sorting Results

When looking at your search results, you really want the very best stuff to come to the top of the first page. Almost every search engine offers you options for how to sort your results. Your best bet is to choose "Relevance" (also sometimes called "Best Match") to sort your results. That will bring the good stuff up to the top. Sometimes databases have a default sort order of "Newest Published," which is sometimes why your results can look... not great. Changing the sort order should help!

The picture below shows how to change the sort order in databases on the library's EBSCO search platform. Most databases will have a sort order menu on the upper right corner of the results page.

Menu in CINAHL showing the "relevance" sort option selected.

Reviewing Results

Here are some problems that can become apparent when you review your search results for relevance:

Words that mean the same thing: you searched "nursing" as in the profession of nursing, but there are too many articles about helping nursing mothers with breastfeeding in your results.) In this case, use the NOT operator to remove related keywords such as "mother" from your search. Adding NOT mothers to the end of your search string should help.

Off-the-mark keywords: you searched "tobacco use" to find articles about the negative effects of smoking. However, you're finding too many articles about chewing tobacco. In this case, the keyword you chose is too broad. Remove it from your search (and if necessary, pick more targeted and relevant synonyms to include).

More Background Information

The literature in your field of interest may be using other terminology that you are unaware of. For example, you may be searching speech generating devices when the accepted term is speech output technologies. Do some reading to make sure you are aware of the discipline-specific jargon commonly in use.

At ISU, here are some tools you can use to search for background information:

Find ebooks using the ISU Library Onesearch bar (you can filter your results to just ebooks by using the Source Type menu on the search results page).
Find health sciences ebooks and textbooks in AccessMedicine or ClinicalKey
Look up information about a medical issue in UpToDate
Don't be afraid to use Google or Wikipedia to do some quick background research (it's okay, librarians do it too!)

Here are some great tips for how to use library databases to address this problem and learn more about your topic:

When reviewing your search results, look at the Subject terms on the records you have found. Often, these are added by subject-matter experts to make the records more findable. In the record below, look how many alternative vocabulary words are used to describe the concept speech generating devices.

Subject terms include "Assistive Technology."

For databases that offer a filter menu on the left side of the screen, expand the Subject filter to review top subject terms on your records. Below is an example of the Subject filter in the CINAHL database for the search speech generating devices.

Subject terms for "speech generating devices" in CINAHL.

For databases that offer a subject-specific Thesaurus feature (usually located in the top menu bar), search your keywords and look at what the thesaurus suggests.

Try a Different Database

The database you are searching in might just have too much coverage of irrelevant topics. For example, if you're using the library's Onesearch bar (the search bar on the library homepage), you could be coming up with irrelevant results from business and news databases.

To fix this, use the ISU library's subject guide (e.g. for speech language pathology or audiology) to suggest the best databases for your subject area!

Tip for the health sciences: if you're not getting good results from your PubMed search, we recommend the library database CINAHL as the next database to try. Does your research question pertain to public health, education, or psychology/behavioral health? Try our subject guides on these topics for more database suggestions!