Literature Searches for Animal Testing Alternatives

For help completing IACUC protocol applications.

Things to Avoid

Using the word (or variations of the word) “alternative” or the phrase "animal testing alternatives" as the only strategy to retrieve information
Keywords that are irrelevant to your protocol
Range of years covered by the search that is not large enough (e.g., 2011-2012 instead of 1990-2012)
Searching for too many keywords at one time
Using too many limiting options or search filters
Using databases that index identical content
- For instance, using PubMed and another instance of Medline or PubMed and Google Scholar

*Not all strategies and operators are applicable for all databases and resources