Plan the sequence as a staged funnel: start with concepts and synonyms, run a broad fielded query, inspect the returned terms, then add filters or phrase constraints one change at a time while logging each step so you can see why results grew or shrank. The Cochrane Handbook describes this kind of work as planning searches, developing a search strategy, documenting searches, and managing records, which gives you a structure for keeping the trail reproducible.
- List concepts and synonyms first. Break your question into its core concepts and write the alternate terms for each. This gives you expansion material before you touch a database.
- Run a broad fielded query. Use field tags to target where terms are matched. PubMed supports field tags, phrase searching, and Advanced Search, so you can build a wide query and see what the database returns.
- Inspect the returned terms. Read the titles, abstracts, and indexed terms in the results to find vocabulary you missed and to spot terms that pull in off-topic records. Add useful terms to your synonym list.
- Add constraints in stages. Introduce one filter or phrase constraint at a time. PubMed supports filters, and OpenAlex can narrow works by attributes such as authorship, concepts, dates, and open-access status. After each change, note the result count and what the change did.
- Log every change. Record the query string, the field tags, the filters, and the result count at each stage. This log is your reproducible trail and shows exactly which step caused results to grow or shrink.
- Use the trail to decide the next move. If a stage collapses the results, return to the prior logged query and loosen that single constraint. If results stay too broad, add the next constraint and log it.
Cochrane also describes searching reference lists and other sources and managing records, which you can add after the database sequence is stable. Keep each stage reversible by saving the query before you edit it; PubMed supports saved searches for this purpose.