Do you want fewer hits?
You can limit your search by choosing more precise terms.
Search terms
Try using the databases' selected subject terms.
Boolean logic
In many databases, you can choose how you want to combine your search terms by using Boolean logic. By selecting AND you limit your search, e.g. war AND peace for any material on both war and peace.
NOT limits your search by excluding a word, e.g. war NOT peace for material only concerned with war, screening out any material using the word peace.
Primarily use AND to get fewer results!
Phrase search
Phrase search is a type of search that allows you to search for an exact sentence or phrase rather than a set of words in random order.
For a phrase search within citation marks e.g. "public sector".
Limits
In many subject databases it is possible to limit your search to peer-reviewed journals. This does however not guarantee that all articles in the journal are scientific.
Searching Specific Fields can be used when you want to refine your search to certain fields like author, title and summary.
Databases may also contain filters to limit the search results e.g. time period, method, age group and gender.
Generally it is also possible to limit your search in terms of language. Remember that most scientific articles are written in English and that also Swedish researchers often opt to publish in English. Sometimes the title of the article has been translated to English even if the body text of the article is written in another language.