Table sugar can go by many different names. Biologists may call it sucrose while chemists may consider its chemical formula, C12H22O11, more important. Just like table sugar, many terms used in health sciences literature searching go by different names in medical research than everyday use.
In Beginning Your Search, you developed a research question. Now, let's see how you can replace words in your question with scientific or medical terms.
Take a look at our PICO question from the previous page (Beginning Your Search):
Population: High school football players who have received head injuries
Intervention: Weekly checks of the air within the helmet padding
Comparison/Control: Compared to checking air pressure before the season and again mid-season
Outcome: Lower concussion rates
Think about which terms you might change when searching medical literature. Do you see any words which you could rewrite as medical terms?
Here are some examples we came up with:
| Beginning Search Terms | Improved Replacement Terms |
| high school | teenage, adolescent |
| head injuries | brain concussion, head trauma |
| concussion | brain concussion |
| helmet | head protection |
When we do our search, instead of typing in our full research question, we'll want to search for articles using these terms.
Sometime, we don't know what the best term will be to find what we're looking for. In these cases, finding better terms comes from exploratory research. If you're not sure what a more appropriate medical term is, start searching with the terms you do know. Then, pay attention to what other terms are used in the sources you find.
It's possible there are multiple scientific or medical terms that refer to the same or similar topics, in which case, we can use "OR" searching to include all appropriate terms.
Remember, searching is an iterative process: that means you'll have to try a search, see the results, make small changes to your search, and try again. You may have to repeat this process a few times to find the results you're looking for.
Many databases also offer what are called "subject headings" or "validated hedges," which offer standardized search terms you can use on their website.
