online search tips - free tutorial

1. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL GUIDE
Tools and tips for information
retrieval and literary searches

2. SEARCH PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES
• 1. IMPROVING QUALITY AND SCOPE OF SEARCH
• 2. PREPARING FOR A JOB INTERVIEW
• 3. MATERIAL FOR A SCHOOL OR ACADEMIC
ASSIGNMENT
• 4. GATHERING INFORMATION FOR A FINAL
PROJECT, THESIS, DISSERTATION, OR LITERARY
SEARCH
• 5. UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS OD BOTH LOCAL
AND GLOBAL MARKETS

3. HOW DO I BEGIN MY SEARCH
What are the definition options?:
Enter Google and write the search term followed by a colon. For example;
Osteoporosis:definition or “isotopic antennas”:definition
Refer to the course textbook for definition terminology
Search your library catalog index according to the Library of Congress search terms or universal subject
headings, such as the term “software requirements.” The catalog search will ensure that you will receive all
the core books of the specific field
If all the above isn’t sufficient in defining the term, search the specified thesaurus in your field - for example,
in medicine use the Medical Subject Headings, in engineering use the thesaurus of Compendex and Inspec,
etc. There you have a choice of hierarchy of related, broader, and narrower terms.
Use the website www.ask.com for more information and relevant sites
Present the google with a well formed question – such as how do I measure the air pressure on dust as it
enters a crack in the wall, or a simpler question such as which companies manufacture sensors, etc.
For acronyms use:
www.acronymfinder.com
Where do I begin? Define the search topic or subject
Step 1
:

4. How do we build a search strategy – we reach this stage after
defining the term, deciding which search terms we want to
use,
and ultimately, planning the hierarchy of the terms we intend
to search. Which terms do we use, which Boolean connectors
(and or not) do we choose to use in order to form the search
strategy.
All the time remembering that or expands the search and and
limits the search.
Transducers or blood-pressure transducer or body attachment
or fluid transducer) and (arteries or membranes)
On either side of the equation one can connect any amount of
terms, the search will include at least one of the terms on
either side of and
The excluding of a search term is also possible
real-time systems" and algorithms) not programming)"
See examples.
Step 2 - building the search strategy

5. Search examples
“breast cancer” or “breast neoplasms” or tumors) and obe*
(CLOGGING OR NARROWING OR BLOCKING OR DECREASING OR
MINIMIZING) and (“coronary arterie* or arter*)

6. Search fields
Step 3 – After have prepared our search strategy – terms chosen, hierarchy
decided, synonyms if necessary, connectors in place – we are now ready to
enter terms in the search field.
Now the question to be asked at this point is which options are available. (check
slide no. 6). Before actually using a search engine, it is important to be aware of
the different options
An internet site , a mega site catering to a specific academic discipline or other
interests such as, business, science, technology, etc.
Databases – those to which your library or university subscribes, open access
databases for full texted articles, or free databases such as Pubmed which
caters to the field of medicine, IEEE for major technology and engineering
conferences, Compendex for bibliographic data in all technological , engineering
and academic fields, Eric, Lexisnexis, and the list goes on and on.
Note – that many of the databases are open for bibliographic information – it is
important to be familiar with their names and coverage

7. Publication types – enhancing search options
Digital resources
• Electronic resources
• Academic databases
• Free and open-access
databases
• eBooks
• Patents
• Standards
• Recommended sites
• Google possibilities
Print resources
• Printed books
• Reference books, manuals,
guide books, encyclopedias,
dictionaries
• Textbooks
• Journals
• Data books, technical
papers, white papers

8. Basic search tools
Use quotation marks when your search topic is a phrase “unmanned
aerial vehicles” or “patch antennes”
On each side of and one can use any amount of terms connected by or such as you see in the following example:
"peripheral circulation" and ("myocardial ischemia", "laser Doppler flowmetry", photoplethysmograph,"transcutaneous oxygen
tension")
•Adjacency of terms
Near and 0/NEAR– one can determine the importance of a term by determining the distance between each term
integrated 0/NEAR circuits
avalanche 3/near diodes
In a google search one can use inverted parenthesis instead of quotation marks as in a database search
[wireless communication systems]
•Boolean connectors
AND 0R NOT
In a google search use a minus or a plus sign to add or omit a word
Animals –dogs
fleas +dogs
•In google use the sign ~in front of a term in order to retrieve synonyms
Smart houses~ smart homes
Spelling inaccuracy – tools such as truncation * when unsure of one or more letters
Z**men, will retrieve ziemen, zeimen
Wildcards ? – will replace one letter such as wom?n will retrieve women, woman
Truncation at the end of a term will retrieve:
Comput* retrieves computer, computers, computerize, computerization
Most databases automatically use autostemming meaning all the variations of a term will be retrieved unless you press on
The autostemming button.

9. SEARCH RESULTS – LIMIT FIELDS
Limit fields – fields whereby search results can be confined to certain
fields, such as a specific author, a specific subject, or a specific
affiliation, etc.
Subject
Author
Year
Language
Title
Document type – article, dissertation, patent, standard ,conference,
proceeding
Controlled vocabulary
Treatment – numerical, overview, theoretical, applications,
dissertations, statistical, graphs, videos, etc.
Additional features that may be of interest is saving the results for
future searches and search combinations, signing up for alerts and
RSS, emailing results to a colleagues and lecturers.