Week 6 Skills Slides - Full Colour

8/17/2019 Week 6 Skills Slides - Full Colour

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Skills Session 6

Database Searching

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Learning Objectives

By the end of the lecture you be able to:

• search more efficiently

• get better results

• know where to look

• be less anxious about your literature research

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•What information am I looking for?

•Where will I find the information

•How will I get there?

•How good is the information?

•How will I ethically use the information

“Finding information is hard….”

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What type of information do I need & where is

it?

• Definition

• Basic overview

• Statistics etc.

Information type

• Book

• Govt. publications

• Wiki

• youtube

General source

• Google

• Library catalogue

How to find it

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• An electronic index to journal articles, conference proceedings and papers,

reports, government and legal publications, patents, books

• Contains citations, abstracts and often links to the full text

• Library has many different databases but they all work with the same

concepts

What is a Database?



When do I need to use a database?

Bibliographic database

(aka

“

Literature database”)

indexed articles, subject specific

e.g.: Ebsco, Proquest

• Recent information

• Research

• Scholarly articles

Information type

• Academic literature

• Journal articles

• Theses, reports etc

General source

• Databases

• Google Scholar

How to find it

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Finding databases suitable for psychology

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Library > Finding Resources > Databases > Subject Support Pages > Psychology >Databases

But also consider some general databases e.g. Academic Search Complete esp if topic

spans areas of psychology e.g. Biological Psychology work is often in Neuroscience

journals.

Consider choosing one selective database and one general.



•

Clear question• Appropriate keywords

– Select keywords from question

– A databases will retrieve exactly

the words you type – Use ‘operators’ to link keywords together

• Synonyms or similar terms

– List similar terms or alternative spellings (pediatric OR

paediatric, obese OR overweight )• Construct your search strategy with these points

in mind

Before you start!

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Question

What are the key concepts?

Now you have your key concepts

what do you do with them to helpanswer your question?

Does weight loss and exercise help reduce

high blood pressure?



•

To retrieve relevant information you need to be able tolink concepts/keywords together

• Databases use Boolean operators to do this

• There are three main operators:

(broadens search) OR will show more results

(narrows search) combines concepts

(excludes a concept) use with CAUTION

Keywords and Boolean operators



• Truncation – alcoho*..will show:

– alcoholic

–

alcohol – alcoholism

– alcoholics

Truncation



•Phrase searching – Inverted commas around a phrase or term

• Heart disease will search for heart, disease, heart

disease

• “heart disease” will search for heart disease

• Limits

– Applying limits will focus your search

• Publication date, age, publication types, peer-reviewedarticle, systematic reviews etc

Remember limits are database dependant

Phrases & Limits



Practice Question

Describe Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi-store model of memory,with reference to the experimental studies which do and do not

support it.

•

Probably use mainly textbook but also work by Atkinson and Shiffrinthemselves

• Probably rely largely on papers from databases

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Initial search term

List the search terms writing alternative terms in brackets after the relevant

term.

• “Multi store model of memory” (“Short-term memory”)

Think about how you will combine and refine them to conduct your search.

You should list the different combinations in order of use to illustrate a logicalprogression to your search from a basic search to an improved search.

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1. Define the keywords you can use

2. Start broad, progressively narrow down

3. Use search building techniques – synonyms, limiters

4. Note ‘clues’ in your results – jargon, exclusion terms etc.

5. Understand what your results mean

6. Repeat your search – be persistent, think laterally

Search strategy

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• Common problems:

–

Spelling mistakes – Typing errors

– Searching with the wrong keywords

– Incorrect symbols for Boolean, truncation or wildcard

– Searching on the wrong database

Check online help or ask a librarian

Results not what you expect?



• Do you have a good article already? Look it up on the

database and see how its indexed. Have you used

these terms? Would it expand / widen your search?

• Is there an author who writes on your topic? Have

you searched to see what else they have written?

• If you have found a good result are there similar

article suggested by the database?

Have you tried...



Finding full text

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Database

Full Text?

• Yes - YAY!• No (see below)

Available

at THINK?

• Check library catalogue

• Ejournal? Print journal? Other database• Check Google Scholar

Submitarticle

request

• Make sure you really need it

• Usually free, but occasionally not• Can take up to 2 weeks so allow time



Definekeywords

• Topic analysis

• Keywords

• Synonyms, jargon, Latin form• Context

Searchbuilding

• Phrase searching

• AND, OR, NOT

• Similar and Citing articles

UseLimiters

• Time frame (recent? historical? trending?)

• Type of literature (review article, clinical trials, news?)

• Gender , age, population , language

after ….

b efore….

during….

So, in summary:

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Documents

Week 6 Skills Slides - Full Colour