Database Searching Tips
There Will Be A Quiz

*Remember, the computer is not that smart - you're smarter - the computer does exactly what you tell it to do and only what you tell it to do - unlike children or pets.

There is always more than one way to do a search. There isn't a right or wrong, but there is a better and a not so great. The following are only a few tips to help you out. Once you understand the concept of basic searching, you will be able to search any database - they all work the same with a few variations.

Terms to know:

• Citation
• Fields
• Truncation
• Limits/Refine

CITATION: If a "Citation" is NOT the make of a car that Chevrolet produced or the most famous racehorse in history, then what is it? (I don't want to know if you're too young to remember the Chevy Citation or the famous horse). Citations are what you "pull up" or "retrieve" when you are searching for journal articles. Below is a sample Citation:

SAMPLE CITATION

Sample Citation Interpretation: The title of the article is: 'The best I ever rode.' This article can be found in the journal: Sports Illustrated in the Fall 1992 issue, which is Volume 77, Issue 9. The article begins on page 8 and is 3 pages long. That's easy enough. Most citations look like the above with a few variations.

FIELDS: Let's move on to Fields - yes, you do have to under stand Fields and no, we're not talking about amber waves of grain or anything like that. Below are some Fields that you are most likely to use when you're searching:

Fields to know:

• Title = TI
• Source = SO
• Author(s) = AU
• Abstract = AB

QUIZ TIME ~~~

1. Do the above Field names look familiar to you? Yes or No
2. Do you think these Fields are part of most citations? Yes or No

The answer to both questions is Yes. If you answered "No" to one or both, call Scary Mary at the reference desk, 552-2424; a hands-on tutorial may be necessary.

Why do I need to know this and why do I care? Well, if you approach the computer and type in just horse and rode you'll find out why! Go ahead, try it - lots of luck finding articles on you specific topic - you'll be in the Library pouring over thousands of citations that have little or nothing to do with your topic. However, if you type in: TI best and TI rode, you will probably retrieve lots of citations with the words best and rode in the titles. Because both terms are in the Title Field, most of them will be what you need. If you type in: TI best and TI rode and SO sports illustrated, you will probably pull up the above citation along with a few others. So, you want to know about race horses? Pretend you do. Type in: TI horse and TI race and you'll retrieve some decent citations.

Very cool interruption here. Type in TI horse* and TI rac*. You will pick up variations on horse and races such as horses and raced, races, and racing. The * allows for different endings. Using * is called Truncation.

If you know the author of an article that you need, but don't know the exact title of an article, use the Author Field - e. g. AU heon m, or AU heon mary or AU heon (yeah, like I'm really published...)

REVIEW TIME

BASIC CONCEPT OF FIELDS: Retrieves less Citations, but more relevant Citations. In other words, you'll have less Citations to look through, and what you do have will be more relevant to your topic.

• Horse and rode = thousands of citations, not very precise - terms do not have to be in the same Field so they may have nothing to do with each other. Think about it. Horse may appear in the title and rode in the abstract; this will lessen the chance of their being related...remember, the computer looks only where you tell it to look; you didn't tell it to look in any specific field so it will look in all fields.
• TI horse and TI rode = lots of citations, but more precise - both terms will be in the title and, therefore, are more likely to be related.
• TI horse and TI rode and SO sports illustrated = fewer citations, very narrow and very precise - terms horse and rode will be the title, but the title of the article has to be in the journal Sports Illustrated.
• TI horse and TI rode and AU Reed = fewer citations, narrow and precise - terms horse and rode will be in the title, but the author of the article has to be Reed.

     QUIZ TIME ~~~

Will TI horse and TI rode and Reed get you horse and rode in the title and Reed as the author? Yes No Maybe

If you answered "No" or "Maybe" you're grasping the concept. If you answered "Yes," call Scary Mary at the reference desk, 552-2424; a hands-on tutorial may be necessary.

Will this be your first or second hands-on tutorial?

LIMITS: Another quick and easy way to narrow your search. The great thing about Limits is that they are usually pre-defined for you. You don't have to go to Help to learn how to limit as you do to learn how to Field search or use Truncation. Somewhere on the screen of every database there is a button labeled Limits, Refine or Revise. Click on it. Put a in the appropriate 's. Choices may include Library Holdings Only - if you this box, the library you are in subscribes to the journal you are interested in. Here, at HCC, you'd Holyoke Community College - meaning we have the journal here. Full Text means the article is available full text and you can print it out from where you sit - no photocopying involved. Other limiting options can include Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals - your professor wants an article on the spread of pneumonia in hospitals, but the article must come from a professional or peer reviewed source; this means it needs to come from a journal such as Clinical Infectious diseases and not Mademoiselle. Limiting options almost always include limiting to the English Language or the Human species. There are some fill-ins. For instance, restricting your search to specific years - just type in a range of years 2001 - 2003 in the blank spaces provided.

ABOUT THOSE VARIATIONS I MENTIONED:

Citation Variations:

• Sports Illustrated; Fall92, Vol 77 Issue 9, p8, 3p (See sample Citation on front page)
• Sports illustrated 77(9):8+ 1991. The number outside the ( ) is the volume number, the number inside the ( ) is the issue number. The article is in volume 77, issue 9 and begins on page 8 and was published in 1992.
• Sports Illustrated 77: 8-10 1992 The number 77 is the volume number, the issue number is not given. The article begins on page 8 and ends on page 10. It was published in 1992.

Field Variations:

• TI horse and TI rode = EBSCO (EBSCO databases are what we use at HCC)
• SO sports iIllustrated = EBSCO
• JN sports illustrated = InfoTrac
• horse.ti. and rode.ti. = Ovid Databases (which we don't have here so don't freak out too much)
• horse[ti] and rode[ti] = NLM (National Library of Medicine's medline, better known as PubMed or the NLM Gateway.

Truncation Variations:

• horse* = EBSCO, InfoTrac, NLM, and almost all other databases
• horse$ = OVID databases. (again, don't worry)

The TI or AU remain the same; where and how you type it in may change. Note journal title field searching may differ -- see SO and JN in the above example. That pretty much covers it; like I said, if you grasp the concept, the mechanics will follow easily enough.

FINAL EXAM

TI (myocardial n3 aspirin*) and SU thrombosis and SO jama: journal of the american medical association and cairns

What exactly does the above search statement tell the computer to retrieve?

If you’re not exactly sure, I’d say you’re good to go!