It is most helpful to articulate a clear, specific, and concise statement of your research question. This will help you identify criteria for selecting relevant articles out of a list of search results. A useful framework to help you develop your research question the PICOTS format.
P (Patients, Population)
P (Problem)
I (Intervention)
C (Comparator(s))
O (Outcome(s))
T (Time to follow-up of each outcome)
T (Timeframe of literature search)
S (Setting)
S (Study design)
Good, specific example: Compared to hormone replacement therapy, how effective is raloxifene in preventing osteoporotic fractures in postmenopausal women in the first year of therapy?>
Unfocused example: Is raloxifene good for older women?