Now comes the second step
and that is search.
I'll open a database here,
(then, I'll talk about that later,
about places where it´s good to look for information) ...
I'm going to use ProQuest,
because it has the best interface.
The databases have essentially
very similar interfaces.
They are not the same,
but they include similar functionality,
which might be placed differently or look different.
So when you go into a database
the first thing to look for is advanced search.
Or it's sometimes called a professional search or so.
In the advanced search there is a form.
The form actually
corresponds to those building blocks.
I have some lines here ...
Every line in that form is actually one building block.
So I have some of these things here,
already prepared,
so I just press CTRL+C
and CTRL+V.
And that's how I just put it there ...
Now another important thing is
that ... you actually have those questions
and you search only in the lower boxes.
I have checked Anywhere here,
that's just anywhere in that record in that database.
But that's not very smart,
because then a lot of results will come out.
It's good to have a look and see what are all the options.
And it pays off
to search at first
in abstracts or in the combination of abstracts and titles.
I'll give the abstracts here,
because mostly in the database the producers require the abstract.
Besides JSTOR,
the abstracts aren't there, it's a little more complicated there ...
But actually, when I set the box,
to search
I'm giving a weight to that question.
Because ...
the more the box determines,
the more pertinent the queries are.
E.g.
when I search in the title,
it looks for those articles
that really relate to the subject.
But it's possible that a lot of articles
that also relate to the subject
are titled completely differently.
That's why the abstract is needed.
It may not be in the title, but it may be in the abstract.
And then there is fulltext,
this is like the very lowest level.
So if you understand me.
Actually, when
I choose the area,
where to search the query.
I am essentially narrowing ...
I'm narrowing down the result.
It's best to start with the abstract
as I say.
This is the abstract of the article, it´s the summary
and when it appears in the abstract,
it is clear that the article will discuss
what I want.
It's good to work with the titles
when looking for something very general
and it throws a lot of results.
It is a good idea then, which might be enough, to set it up in a way
where it searches the titles.
I'll start the search now.
So what to remember from this step?
Always go to advanced search,
put the stones in the form
and most important choose where to search for them.
Because the fulltext is usually set there,
because that returns most results
and then the database looks like it's good.
But it just returns a lot of things you don't need.
I'll start it and see what results it returns.
And it just gave me eight results.
I wanted to show you ...
- good, but here I can too -
When you have ...
or maybe I'd rather ask some other question,
to make a better example.
For example here the preparation can be seen.
Because I had good preparation,
I put it into the form well, it gave me good results.
Eight results, I can go through it beautifully.
It's not like 300 or a thousand or any such set.
E.g. there's something in the title that has this,
because we are looking for something about cobalt,
and I think, well, so,
when the article has the cobalt in the title,
so it's about cobalt.
Good, 46 000 results.
A lot of articles about it.
But here you can clearly see
a lot of those filters.
You do some retrieval,
now it shows you the results
and you have too many of them,
so it's good to think about
what you want.
I am interested only in scientific journals.
There are the filters for that.
Here is the type of document.
So I choose that I only want those scholarly journals.
I'll just get away with aprox
35,000 results, which is great.
Another important filter for those searches
is fulltext,
because I just want articles that I can study straight away.
Good, it's only 2,000 results.
And then the articles that have good quality, so I check the peer-reviewed here.
Then let's say I want some new articles,
so I check here
published in the last two months.
And I already have 72 results out of about 46,000, which is great.
So when you do the search,
it's good to remember
that there are some filters
and check those that you really want.
Because the databases, as I said,
they're showing everything to you
because then they seem to be good.
But mostly you just want journals
or get some monographs
and e.g. ProQuest searches for news
or searches for some
like commercial magazines and stuff like that.
And with these two tools,
the advanced search
you are already searching in the correct fields
you search right in the abstract, search right in the title.
You do not search in fulltext.
You search directly in certain fields
and with those filters, you narrow the search down nicely
and it just gives you a group of meaningful results.
All of the databases have these options.
In some extent.
As I say,
not everywhere is everything
and not everywhere it looks the same way.
E.g. ScienceDirect has another form.
It is worse.
We can have a look at it.
ScienceDirect is a good database yet,
the interface is weaker.
Well, weaker. They tried to adapt
to the common user.
So when I do an advanced search here,
you see. There is something like a form,
but I have a title here
or here a combination of title and abstract
or some of the author-specified keywords.
Don't rely too much on those author-specified keywords.
They just put different things there
and it's not as reliable.
Well, I would like to extend it here -
the line to actually put my building blocks there
and it does not work!
Because here it is just prepared this way.
This is exactly the case where I can use this thing,
the prepared query.
I'll put it there like that -
yeah and they don't support truncation yet.
So I still have to ... delete it.
But most of the time the databases have their own,
some kind of own system,
how to handle those synonyms.
Precisely because those producers are trying
to adapt the databases to people,
who are not professional searchers.
In the old days, the interface was just crazy.
It was nearly programmed
to command lines,
what the database is supposed to do.
And an expert
and a real expert was really needed,
to ask the question and program it
into that search interface.
Today, the providers are actually targeting
to amateur users,
so they try to simplify the interface.
But if you simplify the interface,
you actually get deprived of the detailed features,
you need.
So yeah, it's easier,
but it gives you more results.
They are more relevant, but less pertinent.
Pertinence is actually the real usefulness.
For the man.
So I'll let it go ...
It just didn't find anything here.
It looks like
ScienceDirect doesn't do much about the other matter.
So I'll go back to ProQuest here,
because I want to show you another feature here,
that is about taking away results.
We made preparations,
we did a search,
there is nothing complicated about it.
It's mostly just about thinking about those things.