Create a document listing all the keywords and subject headings you need for your search.
Save your search strategy from each database – use the workspace in each database to save your final search. Or simply print it out.
You’ll find it helpful to keep a simple spreadsheet recording the databases you have searched. Make a note of the date, the database searched, which interface you used (eg EBSCO), the number of hits and the number of relevant results found.
| S - Sampling | Comprehensive / Purposive / Selective |
| T - Type of studies | e.g. methodologies used in the studies |
| A - Approaches | how you found the literature |
| R - Range of years | start and end dates |
| L - Limits | e.g human, language |
| I - Inclusion and exclusions | what is within the scope, and what is not |
| T - Terms used | the search strategy for one database, or summary of terms used |
| E - Electronic sources | databases and platforms e.g. Medline (EBSCO) |
Fully described in the following article by Booth, freely available from Pubmed Central.
Booth, A. (2006). “Brimful of STARLITE”: toward standards for reporting literature searches. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 94(4), 421–e205.
Search terms table
An example of the search terms used for a multi-database search presented in a table showing the concepts, databases used, subject headings and keywords searched. Although this does not show how the terms are combined, or the number of results, it clearly shows the translation between each database. 
Full search strategies for one or more databases searched will usually be included as a supplementary file or appendix to the journal article. Search strategies will usually show:
Example: