Basic Searching Skills

Basic Searching Skills Dan Sich Librarian for Earth Sciences, Planetary Science, Physics & Astronomy, Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Western Ontario November 3 rd , 2008

Agenda
Identifying keywords
Building search strategy
Keywords vs. subjects
Library catalogue
Search limits
Choosing journal article databases

Why plan?
Save time
Focus on what you’re after
Shift ‘angle of attack’ in logical fashion
Avoid wasted effort & repetition
Eliminate ‘garbage’ from results

How to plan
Describe your topic, make it a question
Identify and isolate concepts
Identify variant spellings, synonyms, abbreviations/acronyms, terminology
Research = search, search & search again
Try various combinations
Try various resources (books, articles)

Concept mapping
Visual representation of relationship between concepts
Quick & easy way to ‘brainstorm’
Put top in middle
Put ideas & concepts around main topic
Group similar ideas together
Connect ideas with lines, to show relationships

What is the use of hip rotation in Tai Chi Chuan ‘Pushing Hands’ and how can it be applied in Wing Chun Kung Fu?

What is the use of hip rotation in Tai Chi Chuan ‘ Pushing Hands ’ and how can it be applied in Wing Chun Kung Fu ?

Make a chart Hip rotation Tai Chi Chuan Pushing hands Wing Chun Balanc* Root* Force Redirect* Hip* Open* Clos* Tai Chi NOT Taoist Push hands Sticky hands Sticking hands
Ving Tsun
Wing Tsun
Ving Chun
Ignore:
Kung Fu

Join similar & related terms
Hip*
AND
Rotat*
Ignore:
Balanc*
Root*
Force
Redirect*
Open*
Clos*
“ Tai Chi” AND Chuan NOT Taoist “ Pushing hands” OR “ Push hands” OR “ Sticky hands” OR “ Sticking hands” “ Wing Chun” OR “ Ving Tsun” OR “ Wing Tsun” OR “ Ving Chun”

AND AND AND Join concepts with AND Hip* AND Rotat* “ Tai Chi” AND Chuan NOT Taoist “ Pushing hands” OR “ Push hands” OR “ Sticky hands” OR “ Sticking hands” “ Wing Chun” OR “ Ving Tsun” OR “ Wing Tsun” OR “ Ving Chun”

( hip* AND rotat* )
AND
(“tai chi” AND chuan NOT taoist )
AND
(“pushing hands” OR “push hands” OR “sticky hands” OR “sticking hands” )
AND
( “wing chun” OR “ving tsun” OR “wing tsun” OR “ving chun” )

Keep a search log
Date (because new articles are published daily)
What you want to find (your research question)
Where you searched (name of database)
You search string (terms, Boolean, etc.)
Search limits used (date, language, document type, etc.)
Number of hits (too many?), useful *new* terms discovered, etc.
Useful results (record details somewhere)
...helps you focus efforts and avoid repetition

Keyword searching
Different from Title and Author searching
Use it when you don’t know title or author

Books
Advantages:
Introduction to unfamiliar topics
Basic information
Data, numbers
References to further reading
Disadvantages:
Not as specific as your topic
Not all online or keyword searchable

Library Catalogue contains:
Books
Encyclopedias
Dissertaions
Journals (no journal articles!)
Conference proceedings (no articles!)
… and more

Keyword searching in Library Catalogue
Advantages:
Easy
Flexible
Looks at chapters, title, author, subjects
Useful when you’re missing information
Disadvantages:
You guess at terms
Words are scattered
No chapter info for older books
Many irrelevant hits

Subject Heading searching in Catalogue
‘ Preferred terms’ or ‘controlled vocabulary’
Specific, pre-determined, difficult to guess
Try Title, Author or Keyword search first
Identify relevant results
Look at their Subect Headings
Click Subject Headings to search
Write useful Subject Headings in search log

Subject Heading searching
Advantages:
Your results are more relevant
Find ‘hidden’ gems
Disadvantages:
You need to know the right terms
Only searches in subject headings

Finding Article Databases
Browse by Program
Databases by Title
NOT E-Journals (only useful when you know what article you’re after)

Criteria for choosing Article Databases
Subject coverage?
Date coverage?
Abstracts?
Full text?
Update frequency?
Search limits?
Controlled vocabulary (subject headings)?
Search history?
Search more than one database! Why?

Keyword and Subject searching in Article Databases
Keyword
Try 1 st
usually default search
Article title
Abstract?
Author?
Subjects?
Journal title?
Full text?
Helps you find subjects
Subject
Try 2 nd
aka descriptor
aka controlled vocabulary
aka classification code
Differ between databases
Maybe difficult to guess
Help you redefine your research topic

Searching Article Databases
Search one concept at a time
Join concepts with AND (using Search History)
Gives you flexibility

Going through search results
Sort order?
Relevance?
Publication date?
Journal title? (scholarly?)
Number of pages?
Language?

Going through search results
Not finding enough
Remove non-crucial AND’d terms
Add more OR’d synonyms (e.g., OR taiji, tai ji, quan)
Remove NOT’d terms (e.g., NOT taoist)
Your results may be too general, or off-topic, but they may lead you to something useful
Finding too much garbage
Add more AND’d terms
Remove irrelevant OR’d terms
Add NOT’d terms
Add search limits (date, language, publication type, etc.)

Getting articles
Get it @ Western
Try to get full text version
Search Catalogue by ISSN or Journal Title (not abbreviation)
Search Catalogue by Conference Proceeding information
Don’t give up too easily
We don’t have everything
Order through Interlibrary Loan for $5

Questions?

Basic Searching Skills

by dansich

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