Bad Search Strategy

Or how a librarian can tell something is probably very wrong with your study almost immediately.

For some types of papers, like systematic reviews, a poor search is a huge red flag. The dating app equivalent of a mug shot for a profile pic. But can you really tell that much from a search? Yes, unlike a lot of evidence, such as photographs, the search is fairly easy to assess. 

And yes, the results are affected when a research fails to include subject headings or uses the incorrect syntax. For a systematic review, an improper search run on too few databases = bad science. I'd create a running tally of bad searches, but I'd have to give up my day job. It's that bad.

Western blots can be fudged and images stolen from elsewhere to doctor a study, but a search...that can be rerun immediately and checked. Not to mention someone like myself, I can spot a poor search at a glance. Most health sciences librarian can. 

It's for this reason, as well as fake news and misinformation,  that I believe librarians are having their day.

Or could if we reclaimed our authority. We lost our authority some time in the late 1950s; the movie Desk Set chronicled the loss of employment of a television network's research staff (aka librarians) to an electronic brain aka computer.