Facilitating Information Searches in the Sciences
Graduate Teacher Certification Seminar
Introduction to the UIUC Library Gateway
- Find library materials on and off campus
- Search for articles
- Use electronic reference tools and full text resources
Steps for Finding Information on Your Topic
Step 1. Select and narrow your topic.
One of the most common mistakes made by college students is the failure to sufficiently narrow
the topic of the paper. For example "environmental hazards" might be a good place to start, but the
topic needs to be narrowed.
Another common mistake is to narrow the topic to the point that not enough material is
available.
One strategy would be to search "
environmental hazards", look at the material available, and then narrow the topic
based on ideas gained from the original search.
Step 2. Choose your search terms.
Think of synonyms. You will add to your list as you search and evaluate your search results.
Example:
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environment
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AND
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hazard*
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AND
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remediation
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OR
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.
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OR
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.
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OR
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environmental
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AND
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risk*
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AND
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clean up
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OR
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.
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OR
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.
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OR
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environments
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AND
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pollut*
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AND
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.
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OR
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.
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OR
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.
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OR
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.
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AND
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.
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AND
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.
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You could also limit the topic to health concerns, or to a specific material such as chrysotile
asbestos.
Step 3. Define your search strategy.
Your search strategy will partly depend on the search engine you use. One database may be
available from a number of different vendors, each with its own search engine. For example, the
GeoRef database is available from Silver Platter, Ovid, DIALOG, and other vendors, each having a
unique search engine. Search engines are not yet standardized, and each will handle elements such
as search operators (combining terms), truncation, and so forth differently. Consult the help
functions for each search engine to ensure that you obtain the correct results.
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Basic Search Tools
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Search Operators (also called Boolean Operators): AND, OR, NOT (AND NOT, BUT NOT).
(Some search engines require that these terms be capitalized, and some will take lower case.) These
are used to connect search terms in order to widen or narrow the search. See
figure.
Examples: hazardous waste AND health; hazardous OR toxic OR pollution; asbestos NOT
chrysotile
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Truncation and Wildcards: *, #, +, !, ?, $, etc. These are used as substitutes for
characters within search terms.
Examples: hazard*; pollut*; colo*r
Example of problem using truncation: rock* (returns rock and rocks, but also rockets,
rockers, etc.)
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Nesting: Tells the search engine the order to perform operations by using
parentheses.
Example: (mining OR tailing*) AND (hazard* OR toxic OR pollut*)
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Phrases: Treated differently by the different search engines. With some search
engines phrases must be enclosed in quotes.
Example: "toxic waste"
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Stop words: Avoid using common words such as "a", "the", "of" that are ususally
not included in a search by the search engine. Stop words are treated differently by the different
search engines. With some, they will be ignored; with others, they will cause an error.
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There are other more advanced techniques that can help refine your search
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Fields: Some search engines, such as GeoRef, allow limiting the search to specific
fields. This is useful when you are looking for very specific information. For example, "ashworth
in au and 1998 in py" could be used to find an article by Ashworth, published in 1998, when you do
not know any other information.
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Adjacency: How close words must be within text. Treated differently by the
different search engines.
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Example of a complex search strategy using Boolean operators, truncation and
nesting with GeoRef:
ground
*water
and
(mining
or mines
or tailing
*)
and
(hazard
*
or toxic
*
or pollut
*)
and
(model
* or simulation
)
Step 4. Choose your database
In some ways, your choice of database will limit your search. For example, if you are interested
in the health effects of chrysotile asbestos, searching "chrysotile asbestos" in a medical database
such as PubMed will automatically limit the type of information you find.
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Databases
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Article Databases (Complete List)
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Selected Database Descriptions
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Engineering Village
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Compendex Plus/EI Compendex [Engineering Index]
Provides international coverage of
engineering and technical literature. This database is used to find articles, conference papers,
and technical reports published since 1980.
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INSPEC
INSPEC provides access to the world's leading scientific and technical literature in
physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and
computing, and information technology. The INSPEC database offers access to international journal
articles, conference proceedings, reports, dissertations and books.
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NTIS
US Government technical reports
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Searching
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Boolean Operators available:
AND, OR, NOT
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Truncation
?: Can be used at the end, or within a term.
Example: colo?r returns documents with either color or colour.
*: A multi-character wildcard
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PubMed
- Free public access (your tax dollars at work)
- Deals primarily with medical and biological research since mid-1960's; some coverage of other
sciences
- Part of wider NCBI site including medical information such as OMIM, bioinformatics databases
and tools
- Full-text links to some articles (depending on local availability)
- Thorough documentation available on site (click on "help" link in left-hand bar)
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Searching
- Automatic Term Mapping: "Unqualified terms that are entered in the query box are matched (in
this order) against a MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) Translation Table, a Journals Translation
Table, a Phrase List, and an Author Index." Citations with the subject headings, journal title,
etc. are returned. The input terms are also used to search citation titles and abstracts as text
words.
- Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT (enter in upper case). When searching text words, terms are
"ANDed" together by default.
- Truncation: Unlimited: use *
- Phrases: automatically recognizes some phrases; can specify phrase search by containing in " "
marks.
- Nesting: is used
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Expanded Academic Index (InfoTrac)
- Database includes a wide range of academic journals, trade, and news magazines
- Full-text links to some articles (depending on local availability)
- Help available on site (click on "help" link in left-hand bar)
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Searching
- Subject, Keyword, and Relevance (results ranked by frequency of keyword use) searches
available
- Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT (enter in upper case).
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Truncation
- Unlimited: * (anywhere within term)
- Limited:
? (replaces one character, so gr?y searches for both grey and gray)
! (stands for one or zero characters, so colo!r searches for both color and colour)
- Adjacency: Automatically searches for two terms within two words in either direction. To change
this default: Wn: "The W (within) operator specifies that the word that follows the operator must
occur within n words after the word that precedes the operator for record to match." Nn: "The N
(near) operator specifies that the words on either side of the operator must occur within n words
of each other in either direction for a record to match.
- Nesting: is used
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GeoRef
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U.S. Government Documents (GPO Monthly Catalog; MoCat)
The Catalog of United States
Government Publications indexes print and electronic information published by Federal agencies.
Many of these publications are distributed through the Federal Depository Library Program. The
Catalog via paid subscription contains records from 1976 to present. A
free index contains records generated since January 1994 and
is updated daily. A print index, Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, contains
earlier information.
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Publications of the U.S. Geological Survey:
USGS Publications Warehouse - many with links to
full text; searchable
Step 5. Conduct your search
Step 6. Evaluate search results.
You may find additional key words to use, or terms you want to remove from your search.
Step 7. Refine search and re-do.
Step 8. Find out whether UIUC has the material; if not, use Interlibrary Loan.
Book and Journal Procedures
- To find out whether UIUC has a particular
book, use the
online catalog.
