The document provides comprehensive guidelines on how to effectively search for and manage academic information using various digital tools and online databases. It outlines essential strategies such as defining search questions, using Boolean connectors, and employing specific keywords to enhance research accuracy. Additionally, it lists numerous online resources and databases that facilitate access to scholarly articles and market research for students and researchers.

1. By Dr. Muhammad Ramzan [email_address] , 03004487844 Edited by Ahsan Khan Eco [email_address] 03008046243

2. Background Information is life blood of academia and it needs digital nerves system to run through Universities exist to create and consume information knowledge and scholarship Variety of information sources and formats Authenticated, relevant, a bit processed and updated information is needed Students and faculty is information technology savvy Technologies to manage and access information are changing continuously and fast We are now part of a global society

3. So A researcher should be able articulate a problem to be investigated, locate and assemble information, scrutinize gathered resources, process and apply information towards a solution and contemplate the effectiveness of the entire process The key is to: D efine I nquire S earch C ollect O rganize V erify E xpress R eflect information using appropriate IT-based resources and systems

4. How to go?

5. Tool

6. Common Features of Online Databases Personalization/Registration Alert Services Search Alert Volume/Issue Alert Citation Alert Save Searches Recall to retrieve updated information Email Search Results Article Display Format (pdf and HTM) Exporting citations in citation management tools, EndNote, Refwork, etc.

7. Search strategies Write clear search question Break the question into search concepts Select range of search terms & combine into a search string Search appropriate databases/resources Use Boolean connectors (AND, OR, NOT) Symbols for wildcards and truncation (?, *) Use double quotes “ ” to search for a phrase Select keywords that best express your information need Decide which sources to use, indexes, full text databases Find out how they function Execute your search query Review and refine search results

8. Searching tips Use specific keywords The more relevant results will return to you. Correct Spelling Beware of the differences between English and American spellings (Color, Colour)  (color OR colour) Stop words Ignore the most common words “ the, is, …” e.g. searching the web and the search engine will ignore “ the ” .

9. Database search function Placing AND between two or more keywords commands the database to retrieve only results including all of the keywords you enter. This narrows your search and increases the relevancy of your search results. Placing OR between search terms is a great way to search for synonyms of words. OR broadens your search, allowing the database to find just one of the search terms. Use the operator OR in conjunction with an AND search. Use parentheses to distinguish between the two parts of your search—otherwise the database doesn’t know which words to read with AND and OR (database searches are a lot like math equations). Placing NOT before a search term excludes that specific term from your search results. Example: (movement AND education) NOT “physical education Truncation is another way to expand your search is to truncate it. Truncation locates multiple forms of a word, including different endings. By adding an asterisks (*) to the end of a root word, search results will include any applicable variation of the search term. Example: depress* (searches for depress, depression, depressing, depressed)

10. AND NOT OR AND NOT AND NOT OR

11. Boolean ‘AND’ Allows combing two or more terms Retrieves only records that contain all the specified terms Can be used to narrow down search results ‘ A ’ And ‘ B ’ : AB A B AB Term ‘A’ Computer Term ‘B’ Internet

12. Boolean ‘OR’ Allows combing two or more terms Retrieves records containing either one or some or all the specified terms Can be used to expand the search results ‘ A ’ OR ‘ B ’ : A, B, AB A B AB Term ‘A’ Computer Term ‘B’ Internet

13. Boolean ‘NOT’ Allows combing two or more terms Retrieves only records containing the Term ‘A’ (students) and not records containing the term ‘B’ (Teens) or both ‘AB’ Can be used to narrow down search results ‘ A ’ NOT ‘ B ’ : A LexisNexis uses: ‘AND NOT’ A B AB Term ‘A’ Students Term ‘B’ Teens

14. Keywords Keywords are words that describe or relate to your research topic. You determine what you think are the best keywords. When you search in a database, you can choose to look through specific fields—title, author, and abstract etc.—to locate articles that mention your search term. Choosing the best keywords can be difficult. The easiest method of determining effective keywords is by simply reflecting upon your topic and focusing on its main points. Think of terms describing those main points and you have keywords. Examples: Research topic Potential keywords Adverse effects of obesity on anesthesia, obesity, overweight, , surgery anesthetized patients (or any variation/synonym of these words) Starting a business in Afghanistan Afghanistan, business, “foreign investment,” labor, entrepreneurship, “market forces”

15. Controlled Vocabulary Journal articles and books are assigned terms that describe them—controlled vocabulary—for database organization and retrieval purposes. Controlled vocabulary can also be called subjects or descriptors. Controlled vocabulary terms are just that—controlled—thus they are not usually phrases you would think of off the top of your head; rather, they are chosen by experts and are often formal and structured. Examples: PSYCHOLOGY, Pathological BUSINESS enterprises – Pakistan In order for a controlled vocabulary search to be successful, you need to know where to locate the correct vocabulary term for your topic. Location varies from database to database.

16. EBSCO Databases: Controlled vocabulary appears automatically on the left side of the search results page

17. ProQuest Databases: On the search page, change the field to search to Subject. The link Look up subjects will appear. Click on that; on the subsequent page you can search with your keywords to find ProQuest’s controlled vocabulary

18. Quotation marks Databases do not recognize common phrases. If you search with a phrase, like music education, put quotation marks around it. Quotation marks force the database to search for the phrase as a whole, not just the words here and there. Databases read quotation marks as commands—the words in between the quotation marks need to be found exactly as written (so check your spelling!). Example: “Free trade agreement”

19. Example quotation use

20. Types of Online Databases Indexing Database ERIC, Agricola, Medline, EconLit, etc. Statistical databases Stat-USA, UN Common Database, PC-TAS, Infofish, etc. Full text databases Science Direct, Emerald, JSTOR, Springer, Wiley Interscience, Lexisnexis, etc.

21. Some online databases ( http:// www.informaworld.com ) Informaworld provides access to over 1100 peer-reviewed research journals published by Taylor & Francis, Rutledge, Psychology Press and Informa Healthcare in Sciences, Engineering and Humanities subject areas generally from 1997 to present. JSTOR ( http:// www.jstor.org ) An online archive database with complete backfiles of over 700 core scholarly journals covering Business, Finance, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Language, Law, Religion, Philosophy, Anthropology, History, Geography, Biological Sciences, Political Sciences and Education. ScienceDirect ( http:// www.sciencedirect.com ) The world's leading electronic collection of scientific journals and provides access to the fulltext of last 5 years. The subject areas covered in this database are: Business Management and Accounting, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics.

22. Some online databases ( http:// www.informaworld.com ) Informaworld provides access to over 1100 peer-reviewed research journals published by Taylor & Francis, Rutledge, Psychology Press and Informa Healthcare in Sciences, Engineering and Humanities subject areas generally from 1997 to present. JSTOR ( http:// www.jstor.org ) An online archive database with complete backfiles of over 700 core scholarly journals covering Business, Finance, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Language, Law, Religion, Philosophy, Anthropology, History, Geography, Biological Sciences, Political Sciences and Education. ScienceDirect ( http:// www.sciencedirect.com ) The world's leading electronic collection of scientific journals and provides access to the fulltext of last 5 years. The subject areas covered in this database are: Business Management and Accounting, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics.

23. ( https://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe ) More than legal research, the LexisNexis® Total Research System provides you online access to state and federal case law; codes and statutes; court documents and extensive secondary materials such as treatises and law journal articles. It has over 3.5 billion public records; business news, legal news, and regional news; expert commentary on the law; Shepard's® Citations Service; and so much more. ( http:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com ) Wiley InterScience offers over 3 million articles from 1400+ journals, the combined output of all Wiley-Blackwell peer-reviewed primary research and survey journals. It covers the full spectrum of science, technology, Engineering, medicine, business, social sciences, and the humanities. Many of these titles are ranked at the forefront of their fields ( http:// www.emeraldinsight.com /Insight ) Provides full text of all 150+ Emerald online journals available, with full text back files, many going back to 1990's abstracts going back in some cases to 1980's. Some online databases

24. ( http:// www.springerlink.com ) One of the world's leading online information services for scientific, technical, and medical books and journals. Over 1100 fully peer reviewed journals are available with back files starting from different dates. ( http:// journals.cambridge.org ) Cambridge University Press’s collection of nearly 200 leading journals across the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Business Source Premier ( http:// search.ebscohost.com ) Business Source Premier is the industry’s most used business research database, providing full text for more than 2,300 journals, including full text for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed titles. This database provides full text back to 1886, and searchable cited references back to 1998. Business Source Premier is superior to the competition in full text coverage in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. This database is updated daily on EBSCO host. Some online databases

25. Project Gutenberg ( http:// www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page ) Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free eBooks. It provides free online access to more than 30,000 eBooks on number of subject areas. These books are searchable through title, author and keyword. Bartleby ( h ttp:// www.bartleby.com/index.html ) The E ncyclopedia of W orld H istory and T he H arvard C lassics are among many free texts offered at this award-winning site. Many classic reference works are available there. Internet Public Library ( http:// www.ipl.org /reading/books ) The IPL Online Texts Collection contains over 20,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal Classification". Free Book Resources

26. Free Book Resources FreeBookSpot ( http:// www.freebookspot.in ) This is an online source of free ebooks download with 4485 FREE E-BOOKS in 96 categories which up to 71,97 GB. You can search and download free books in categories like scientific, engineering, programming, fiction and many other books. No registration is required to download free e-books. Free- eBooks ( http://www.free-ebooks.net ) This is an online source for free ebook downloads, ebook resources and ebook authors . Besides free ebooks, you also download free magazines or submit your own ebook. You need to become a Free-EBooks.Net member to access their library. Registration is free. ManyBooks ( http:// manybooks.net / ) provides free ebooks for your PDA, iPod or eBook Reader . You can randomly browse for a ebook through the most popular titles, recommendations or recent reviews for visitors. There are 21,282 eBooks available here and they’re all free.

27. Free Journals Directory of Open Access Journals ( http:// www.doaj.org / ) Developed by Lund University Libraries and supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute along with SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. The directory contains information about 350 open access journals, i.e. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. The service will continue to grow as new journals are identified. Electronic Journals Library ( http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/ ) The Electronic Journals Library is a service offered by the University Library of Regensburg to facilitate the use of scholarly journals on the Internet. At 1 January 2004 it contained 12,979 titles, among them 1319 online-only journals, covering all subjects, of which 3358 journals can be read full-text free-of-charge. HighWire Press ( http:// www.highwire.org/lists/freeart.dtl ) Sources of free On-Line full text articles and journals HighWire Press work with scholarly societies and responsible publishers to host their content online. They do not own the material, nor do they set the journals' policies. HighWire contains over 439,456 free full-text articles as of January 2003. HighWire Press at Stanford University develops and maintains the Web versions of important journals in biomedicine and other disciplines.

28. Resolve Recognize the importance of information and knowledge in your belief, professional and personal life Know what you exactly need Learn how to find what you need Enhance searching and analytical skills Mastery for online databases use Be relevant in this information technology era through continuously enhancing your information searching and research skills Technology is to support and assist you

29. Preparing Your Search & Some Useful Online Data Resources on Trade & Commerce

30. STEP 1:STATE WHAT YOU WANT TO FIND First, in one or two sentences, state what you want to find. For example: I want to find information on popular methods of losing weight. What are the characteristics to look for when purchasing a diamond?

31. STEP 2: IDENTIFY KEYWORDS Underline the main concepts in the statement. Example: I want to find information on popular methods of losing weight . What are the characteristics to look for when purchasing a diamond ?

32. STEP 3: SELECT SYNONYMS AND VARIANT WORD FORMS List synonyms, alternate spellings, and variant word forms of each keyword. Example: popular common favorite methods method ways way techniques technique

33. STEP 4: COMBINE SYNONYMS, KEYWORDS, AND VARIANT WORD FORMS Combine synonyms with Boolean OR. Example: (losing or lose or reducing or reduce or reduction) (weight or fat or dieting or diet)

34. Step 4 Cont. Use truncation with an asterisk symbol (*) to combine variant word forms. Example: (los* or reduc*) (weight or fat or diet*) Combine keywords with Boolean AND. Example: (los* or reduc*) and (weight or fat or diet*)

35. STEP 5: CHECK YOUR SPELLING Online databases return results that match your keywords. If you misspell a keyword, your results will contain results where that word is also misspelled. Check American or British spellings

36. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources CBI (Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries ) (www.cbi.eu) Provides up-to-date information on topics like market access requirements, market size, consumer trends, trade structure, packaging, pricing, terms of trade and export guidelines for more than 35 sectors, covering the European Union and its member states. ITC (International Trade Centre) ( www.intracen.org) ITC provides tailored market research and trade analysis, and conducts training programs in market analysis for trade policy makers, trade support institutions and the business community in developing countries.

37. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources IMF (International Monetary Fund) Databas ( www.imf.org) IMF publishes a range of time series data on IMF lending, exchange rates and other economic and financial indicators. United Nations (http://undata.org) The Statistics Division compiles and disseminates global statistical information, develop standards and norms for statistical activities, and support countries’ efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems.

38. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org) The World Bank's Open Data initiative is intended to provide all users with access to World Bank data. Many World Bank databases provide updated statistics on various areas of trade, finance and economy. Eeuromonitor International (www.euromonitor.com) Euromonitor International is the world's leading independent provider of business intelligence on industries, countries and consumers. Its online information databases on industries, countries and consumers integrate international market statistics with strategic, insightful comment and reports.

39. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources Economist Intelligence Unit ( www.eiu.com ) The Economist Intelligence Unit is the world's leading resource for economic and business research, forecasting and analysis. It is particularly well known for its monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, country risk service reports and industry reports. Data Monitor (www.datamonitor.com) Datamonitor is an international company which publishes market research on a number of different industries. It is a division of Informa, a United Kingdom-based publisher and conference company.

40. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources OECD (Organization for Economic Co operation and Development (www.oecd.org) The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organization of 34 countries founded to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It defines itself as a forum of countries committed to democracy and the market economy. Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) ( http:// www.accaglobal.com / ) ACCA is the global body for professional accountants aims to offer business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management.

41. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources FBR (Federal Board of Revenue) (www.fbr.gov.pk) The Federal Board of Revenue is the supreme federal agency of Pakistan that is responsible for enforcing and collecting revenue. It publishes reports regarding taxation, custom and excise duties. State Bank of Pakistan (www.sbp.org.pk) The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is the central bank of Pakistan. The bank has also been entrusted with the responsibility to carry out monetary and credit policy in accordance with Government targets for growth and inflation with the recommendations of the Monetary and Fiscal Policies Co-ordination Board without trying to effect the macroeconomic policy objectives.

42. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (www.secp.gov.pk) The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is a government agency whose purpose is to develop a modern and efficient corporate sector and a capital market based on sound regulatory principles, in order to foster economic growth and prosperity in Pakistan. IAR (Industrial Advisory Reports) (www.iarreports.com) Industrial Advisory Reports" are being published by I&A Research Publications from 1st October 2004. Every fortnightly report depicts the Investment Opportunities in Pakistan, in a specific sector that would help the businessman, banker and consultants to make strategies in accordance with the situation

43. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources Population Census Organization (www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/index.html ) It is responsible for planning and execution of decennial Population and Housing Census and release of its data for public and private use. Population Census Organization process and disseminate data in the form of regular census reports and a number of supplementary reports based on analysis and research of demographic data Agricultural Census Organization (www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/aco/index.html Agricultural Census Organization (ACO) was created in 1958, in the Ministry of Agriculture & Works, with the main objective to collect, process and disseminate agricultural statistics

44. Trade & Commerce – Some Useful Online Sources Finance Division Ministry of Finance (Government of Pakistan ) ( http:// finance.gov.pk ) The Finance Division deals with the subjects pertaining to finance of the Federal Government and financial matters affecting the country as a whole, preparation of annual budget statements and supplementary/excess budget statements for the consideration of the parliament accounts and audits of the Federal Government Organization. Publications include annual budget, economic surveys etc. FBS (Federal Bureau of Statistics) (www.statpak.gov.pk) The Federal Bureau of Statistics , also known as FBS is a Government of Pakistan's major department charged with the national statistical services and to provide solid and comprehensive statistical research.

45. Think what else do we need to learn and remember? What I need? How to search? Where to find?

46. THANK YOU By Dr. Muhammad Ramzan [email_address] , 03004487844 Edited by Ahsan Khan Eco [email_address] 03008046243