Block Search

Block search is a search method used when you want to find as many documents as possible on a topic. 

Your block search consists of blocks, where each block contains a subtopic from your research question.

The subtopics are each combined with an OR between the synonyms, and each block is combined with an AND.

In other words, you use Boolean operators in your block search. 

You can have multiple blocks of subtopics, and you can have few or many synonyms in each block. It depends on your topic and your research question. 

Three blue boxes with the text synonym or synonym and the word and in between each box

When you search in databases such as Academic Search Ultimate, Cinahl or Scopus, you are performing block searches. 

Block searches are best suited if you want to search for several terms simultaneously.

You need to spend a little extra time looking through your keywords and sorting them by importance so that they are grouped together in blocks.