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Search strategies – how to cover all the bases

Search strategies – how to cover all the bases. Erika Gavillet Walton Library. Define your topic. Be clear on what you are asking Keep the question as simple but as specific as possible Analyse the elements of your question main subjects or concepts population group - sex, age range

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Search strategies – how to cover all the bases

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  1. Search strategies – how to cover all the bases Erika Gavillet Walton Library

  2. Define your topic • Be clear on what you are asking • Keep the question as simple but as specific as possible • Analyse the elements of your question • main subjects or concepts • population group - sex, age range • publication language • publication date

  3. Sample question What has been published in English since 1999 on the relationship between heavy drinking and adolescent behaviour?

  4. Analyse the question… • subject 1 • subject 2 • population group • publication type • publication language • publication date heavy alcohol drinking adolescent behaviour (adolescents) journal articles English 1999-2014

  5. Your main concepts • Make a list of all your main search terms • Check for alternate terms and synonyms • Use thesauri and dictionaries, • Use controlled vocabularies (MeSH headings) Most indexes and cataloguers with use MeSH MeSH is NOT just medical terminology

  6. Population group • Age • Sex • Race • Socio-economic grouping

  7. Dates • How far back do you need to go? • Earliest electronic resources are in the 40’s but most go back to 80’s • Might need to consult printed indexes - Recent work? Use review articles, Cochrane, Web of Science, Scopus

  8. …choose your sources • Journals - Probably your biggest source - E-journals are searchable - Databases easy to use - May have to use printed indexes for older material Accessing journals- Library homepage

  9. Books/Textbooks • Not so up-to-date, but… • ..A good search covers all the bases! • Good for bibliographies Use: • British Library -http://catalogue.bl.uk/ • Amazon - www.amazon.com

  10. Grey literature • eg. theses, conference proceedings, reports Use: • Zetoc (tocs for conference papers and journals) • Index of conference proceedings (on BL catalogue) • Index to Theses (Library databases) • UK Clinical Research Network (http://www.ukcrn.org.uk/index.html)

  11. Databases • Wide range of databases in biomedical sciences • Available via Library homepage

  12. Useful databases • Medline – US, 1946-, biomedical/clinical sciences • Embase – European, 1974-, toxicology, pharmacology, interventions • PsycInfo – 1806 -, psychology, psychiatry, behavioural sciences • Scopus – 54m records (33m back to 1996 , 21m back to 1823), multi-disciplinary • WoK – 1900 -, 40m references, multi-disciplinary

  13. Controlled vocabularies

  14. Controlled vocabularies • Medline/Cochrane Library – MeSH • PsycInfo – APA thesaurus • Embase - Emtree

  15. ‘Keyword’ databases • Web of Science (Web of Knowledge) • Scopus

  16. Okay… • I have my search terms. • I’ve chosen my resources. Anything else I need to know about?

  17. Oh, yes… Applying search techniques…. Boolean logic - AND, NOT, OR To make your searches more or less specific.

  18. AND BOTH of the search terms are present

  19. AND

  20. OR At least one of the search terms is present.

  21. OR

  22. NOT Only one of the terms is present

  23. Getting round word variants – truncation Most databases use * So, disease* returns disease, diseases, diseased Be careful, rat* returns rat, rats, rate, rationalise, ratio, ratify…

  24. Google • Extremely powerful search engine • Has INCREDIBLY advanced searching technology built in, as well as an advanced searching capacity, but… …not a lot of people know that… http://www.google.com/advanced_search

  25. Google – search operators • Many search features: http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

  26. During the search process • Re-run searches • Sign up to alerting services

  27. Keeping records Potential scenario….

  28. Keeping records • Use bibliographic software: EndNoteX7

  29. Research skills • http://faculty-tools.ncl.ac.uk/training

  30. If you have been… …thanks for listening! • Any questions? medliaison@ncl.ac.uk

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