Database Name | Name each individual database searched. At least 2 databases need to be consulted. |
Example: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus
*Note: PubMed, Medline, PMC, and NCBI are considered to be three different ways to search the same set of literature. For your search, you would need to only search one of these in addition to another database. *Note: Google Scholar is not considered a scholarly database and is a search engine. It is not appropriate to search when looking for animal alternatives. |
Date of Search | Provide the date you conducted the search | Example: January 1, 2024 |
Period Covered by Search | Provide a range of years or months to indicate what time period of literature you consulted when conducting your search. This may be different from the date you conducted the search. Our policy requires you to search for literature published in the past ten years. | Example: 2014-2024 |
Search Terms | Search terms included should be relevant to the type of procedure that could cause pain or distress and the animal model you are using. You should also include keywords for the 3Rs terms: Reduction, Refinement, and Replacement. | See the Search Keywords tab for examples. |
Search Strategy | This should include all the terms you used and how you combined them using Boolean Operators. |
Example: mice AND pain AND anesthesia |
Ideally, you should save a few important citations and a sentence or two about the impact, or lack of impact, of each listed article on your project.
Understanding how to correctly use Boolean operators to construct your search is important!
AND | Narrows search to only items containing both terms; best for combining 2 concepts | heart attack AND aspirin |
OR | Broadens search to items containing any terms; best for combining synonyms | heart attack OR myocardial infarction |
NOT | Narrows search to items containing 1 term but not another; use with caution | dolphins NOT football |
See more search examples.