Exporting your search results prepares you for later stages of research, such as screening and writing. Exporting your results also makes it easier for you to review them more closely, including offline if needed.

Search results can be exported from all major databases available via Monash Health Library.

How to export

See our 1-page summary of how to export search results from Ovid (Medline, Embase, Emcare, and APA PsycInfo), and Cochrane Library.
Note: Watch the video below if you need to export more than 1,000 results from an Ovid database.

Downloading & Exporting Database Results

For other databases, see the relevant user guide in our list of Databases for Literature Searching.

Databases for Literature Searching

Choosing a file format

Most large databases will let you export results in a variety of file formats -- Ovid offers 13 different options. Before exporting to one or more file formats, consider the following:

• Reference management -- be sure to export your results in a format compatible with your preferred reference manager. If in doubt, see our Referencing Guide and export in multiple file formats.
• Next steps in your research -- e.g. to screen your results in Covidence, you will need to import them as either an EndNote XML file or RIS text file.
• Long-term preservation -- see our guidance on preservation and data formats..

Tip: It is always helpful to export your results as a RIS file, even if you are exporting in another file format too. RIS files are compatible with many different reference managers and software such as Covidence.

How to export more than 1000 results from Ovid [1 min 9 secs] by Monash Health Library
This video demonstrates how to export more than 1,000 results from the Ovid platform. The Ovid platform includes the Medline, Embase, Emcare, and PsycINFO databases.

Why use a reference manager?

Taking an organised and structured approach to managing the results of your search -- such as by using a reference manager -- makes it easier to handle the potentially large number of papers found during your search. It also minimises the risk of losing or misplacing relevant papers.

Importantly, reference managers help you to:

• Add in-text citations and reference lists when you write up your research ('cite while you write')
• Find, read, and annotate the full-text of relevant papers
• Remove any duplicate papers from your search

Reference management software

There are various reference managers available, such as EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. Check our 1-page overview to decide which reference manager is right for you. 

Which reference manager is right for you?

Visit the Library's Referencing Guide for more information on common reference managers.

Referencing Guide

EndNote

EndNote is installed on all PCs in each of our onsite libraries (MMC, Casey, Dandenong, and Moorabbin). EndNote has many features to help you store, organise, and manage literature search results, including:

• Organise articles into groups and create group sets and smart groups
• Find and remove duplicate records - detailed instructions the EndNote User Guide
• Find full-text of articles
• View and annotate PDF files
• Customised citation fields - add labels or tags to help find papers
• Share EndNote library with colleagues, research team 

Visit our EndNote Guide for more information these features and how to obtain an EndNote license for your Monash Health PC or laptop. 

EndNote User Guide

The Library runs regular EndNote training sessions with live demo and Q&A. Check the webinar calendar to register for an upcoming session. 

Library Webinars Calendar

What is deduplication? 

Deduplication is the process of removing duplicate papers from your search results. When you search in multiple databases, a small portion of papers will appear in one or more databases, creating duplicates. 

Duplicates may not be evident until you have used a reference manager such as EndNote to collate the search results from multiple databases.

Why deduplicate?

While deduplication is not strictly necessary for all research projects, it is almost always a helpful step because it saves you time by reducing the volume of results that you need to look through.

Deduplication is required when conducting most forms of literature reviews, such as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and scoping reviews. Visit our Systematic Review Guide for more information. 

Systematic Review Guide

When should you deduplicate?

Deduplication is done after you have finished searching all of your selected databases. It is generally a good idea to deduplicate before you begin looking closely through the results of your search, and certainly before you start to source the full-text of relevant articles.

If you will be screening your search results, ensure that you deduplicate before starting to screen.

How to deduplicate

The most efficient method for finding and removing duplicates is by using reference management software such as EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley. Visit our Referencing Guide for more information on using different reference management systems.

Referencing Guide

Covidence is another tool for literature reviews which features automatic deduplication. As you import references to your Covidence workspace, duplicates will automatically be identified and removed from the main results.

Covidence User Guide

Alternatively, it is also possible to identify duplicates in an Excel spreadsheet. If you have exported your search results from a database in a spreadsheet format, you can use conditional formatting to highlight duplicate values for closer inspection.