University of Paisley Library Searching Online Resources

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University of PaisleyLibrary Search
ing Online Resources

• For more advanced guidance see
• Advanced Online Searching and Research slides.
• Also available in print from the library

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Database searching . . . before you begin

• Define your topic consult a textbook to get some
  idea of the subject and the terminology used.
• Consider a time limit. Are you only interested in
  material published in the last 5 years? Most
  databases allow you to restrict your search by
  date.
• Decide which sources to use. These will probably
  include databases, printed sources, online
  journals, the internet.
• Try and write a sentence or two about what you
  are looking for. This will give you focus and
  provide some keywords. Think of alternative
  keywords, broader terms and narrower terms.
• Use sensible keywords. There is no need to use
  nursing as a keyword in a nursing database.
  Using a term like research on its own will
  produce thousands of records.

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Selecting DatabasesSee Literature Searching -
Introduction slides for detailed guide.

• Both Full Text and Bibliographic databases are
  available. Full text databases offer the full
  text of journal articles and may be a good place
  to start.
• Bibliographic databases give citation details and
  sometimes an abstract of the articles. Their
  coverage is generally larger than the full text
  databases. They often have more powerful search
  features. Cinahl offers a mixture of
  bibliographic and full text resources.
• Full text of articles can usually still be found
  electronically via the Find eJournals List from
  the Resources link on the Library web pages.

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Subject and Free Text Searching

• Most databases allow searching by Free Text, but
  some databases allow you to search by Subject as
  well.
• Searching by Subject searches the database
  indexes for all the articles about that topic.
  This is usually a more specific way to search. To
  search by subject on Cinahl, click on Cinahl
  Headings at the top of the search page. In
  Proquest, browse topics and add to search. In
  EBSCO Nursing, click on the Subjects tab and
  browse the subjects in an A-Z list.
• Free text searching looks for articles containing
  your keywords anywhere you ask it to, usually in
  the title, abstract and (if available) the full
  text of the article. This may find more
  irrelevant articles than subject searching.
• Often you will need to try both of these
  approaches.

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And, or, and other useful operators

• These are sometimes called Boolean Operators.
  This is just a selection. Click on the Help
  function of whichever database you are using for
  a full range of features.
• When using more than one keyword or phrase you
  need to combine the terms with the word and.
  For example, heart disease and smoking. This
  will retrieve articles about, or containing,
  these 2 terms. Some databases use or
  instead of and. Previous searches can also be
  combined using and.
• To broaden a search use Or. For example, heart
  disease or heart failure will retrieve articles
  about, or containing, either of these terms.

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Truncation, wildcards, brackets

• The Truncation feature is very useful. It is used
  to search for words which begin with a common
  root but have a variety of endings. For example
  
• smok will find smoking or smokers
• psychiatr will find psychiatry,
  psychiatrist, psychiatrists, psychiatric
• The characters and are most commonly
  used. Clicking on Help in any of the databases
  will tell you which to use.
• Wildcard works in a similar way but the symbol
  replaces a letter in the middle of a word. Thus,
  gyn?ecology will find gynaecology and
  gynecology. Consult the database help for
  symbols and rules. All work differently.

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Using brackets and limiting searches

• Brackets are used for complex searches with
  multiple clauses. If the search combines and
  with or, for example
• smok and (heart disease or heart failure)
• (obesity or nutrition) and (heart disease or
  heart failure)
• Most databases allow you to restrict searching to
  year(s) of publication. Many databases also
  allow you to limit your search to particular
  types of publication, for example, academic
  publications, research articles or reviews.
• Databases offering full text of articles usually
  allow you to limit your search to titles for
  which full text is available.
• Cinahl has a particularly wide range of LIMITS
  you can apply. Use the Limit Your Results part
  of the search page, or Refine your search.

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Finding articles published in the UK

• Using UK terminology, e.g. Health Visitor, GP,
  will automatically find UK material. Similarly UK
  versus US spellings.
• In Cinahl the range of limits you can apply is
  particularly good. One allows you to limit your
  search to articles published in the UK and Eire.
  Go down to the Limit Your Results part of the
  search page, or click on the Refine Search tab.
  Pull down the Journal Subset menu and highlight
  UK and Ireland. Then perform your search.
• If all else fails, add the following clause to
  your search and (UK or United Kingdom or
  Scotland)

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Finding research articles

• Many databases, including Cinahl, have a Research
  limit you can set before performing your search.
  On Cinahl, Go to Limit Your Results and pull down
  the Publication Type menu.
• Review articles are good. These review the
  existing research on a topic so their Reference
  Lists are valuable, in addition to their
  commentary on the research.
• Cinahl also allows you to search for Review
  articles. This limit is found on Limit Your
  Results on the Search page, by pulling down the
  Publication Type menu.
• Use the Cochrane Library. This contains a number
  of databases, including the Database of
  Systematic Reviews and the Abstracts of Reviews
  of Effectiveness (DARE). They are concerned with
  evidence of the effectiveness of clinical
  interventions.
• Using and research as a keyword is possible,
  but hit and miss.

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Searching the Internet

• Be wary use the Librarys databases as first
  port of call.
• Use accredited Health Gateways, eg Intute and
  resources, eg SHOW, NHS Health Scotland (HEBS).
• Use Recommended Internet Sites on the Librarys
  Resources page, Health Nursing and Midwifery
  link.
• Google is good for finding Organisations, reports
  and web publications. Google is also useful for
  finding patient information, but again, make sure
  it is accredited.
• Not a good idea to use Google for topic
  searching. Type cure for cancer into Google and
  have a look at the first few hits. Do they look
  scientific or evidence-based?
• Google Scholar may be useful but you will not
  have access to subscription-only publications
  found there unless the library subscribes to them.