Once you have finished translating the search strategy, the next step is to run the searches in each database and export all of the results to a citation management tool or to a review software tool. If you are using a citation management tool, EndNote is the tool of choice as it is stable and allows you to share your library with other members of the research team. EndNote 21 is available to all Ontario Tech students, staff and faculty via the Software Portal. For assistance in accessing EndNote and installing it on your computer, please contact IT Services.
For more information on how to use EndNote or other citation management tools, please see the Library workshop slides or the user guides linked below:
The guides below provide instructions for downloading multiple search results from selected databases such as ProQuest, EBSCO, Ovid, CINAHL and grey literature sources. This is particularly relevant for those engaged in knowledge/evidence synthesis research.
While most research databases have an export option that allows you to export search results directly to EndNote in a file format such as RIS, some do not. For those databases, you can either enter each reference manually, or you can check to see if EndNote has created a custom filter. When you use a filter, you save your database search results as a text (.txt) file and then import the file into EndNote using the previously downloaded filter.