Learning Objectives
1. To understand how to prepare and execute an advanced keyword search, including how to:
- divide a research topic into concepts and find synonymous or related terms for each concept;
- use logical operators to create relationships among search terms and sets in order to find relevant records using Gale's InfoTrac OneFile.
Instructions
1. Read Lesson seven and complete the accompanying exercises.
2. Turn in the completed lesson at the Reference Desk for grading.
(Be sure to write in
any hours spent working on the course on your log sheet.)
PREFACE
Since early in the course, you have been working with keyword searching. You may recall that this is the search method you used on the online catalog (WebPAC) to find books on your topic and it was also the approach you used on Gale'sInfoTrac OneFile in the previous lesson. This lesson introduces you to a more advanced method of keyword searching. We will be again working with Caņada's premier periodical index, Gale's InfoTrac OneFile.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF BASIC
KEYWORD SEARCHING
Keyword searching is a method of searching a bibliographic database in which you use your own "keywords" to describe your topic rather than official subject headings. The computer will search for your terms in any field they may appear in a record - even the full-text of the article(s) if available.
Up to this point, you have been doing keyword searching using only one word, such as multiculturalism; or a 2-3 word phrase, such as gun control. You've also had a little practice with combining keywords using the logical operator AND. This resulted in search statements such as clothes AND psychology. You will now be introduced to the principles of advanced keyword searching.
ADVANCED KEYWORD SEARCHING
The goal of advanced keyword searching is to execute a careful, systematic search of a bibliographic database that will result in a set of records relevant to your topic with few or no false hits. (A set is the group of records that results from a search.) Effective keyword searching, however, requires some preparation. Explained below are six steps for preparing and executing an advanced keyword search:
STEP 1: CLEARLY ARTICULATE YOUR RESEARCH TOPIC OR QUESTION
In Stage 3 of the research process you learned how to come up with an appropriately phrased topic that's not too broad or too narrow. Here's an example of an appropriately focused topic:
How does pet ownership
affect quality of life among older people?
STEP 2: DIVIDE YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION INTO CONCEPTS (i.e. MAIN IDEAS)
Analyze your topic and break it down into main ideas or "concepts." Well-chosen research topics should have two or three (sometimes four) concepts. If you can only identify one concept, your topic is too broad; and if you identify more than four concepts, it's probably too narrow. Either flaw would require you to refocus your research question.
Each concept should be expressed succinctly in a single word or short phrase of 2-3 words. For example, the research topic about pet ownership can be broken down into 3 concepts:
Concept #1: pets
Concept #2: quality of life
Concept #3: aged
Notice that only the
most significant ideas from the research topic are identified as
concepts. This means that in addition to leaving out the "minor" ideas
from your topic, you should also avoid creating a concept to represent
the relationship between concepts. Therefore, the idea of an "effect,"
"relationship," "outcome," "result of," "influence on," etc., should not
be used as a concept.
REVIEW EXERCISE ON BASIC KEYWORD SEARCHING
-
Go to Gale's InfoTrac OneFile database. Using the options on the blue side of the search screen, change from the Subject Search screen to the Keyword Search screen by clicking on Keyword Search .
-
In the keyword (ke) search box, type in pets and quality of life and aged.
1) How many citations did the database find for this search? ___________
If you are researching
a 10 page paper on this topic, would you consider this be a successful search?
Does it seem like there should be more articles on this topic in the database?
Do you think it would be helpful for you to modify your search by trying
other terms or other search strategies such as broadening your search?
STEP 3: LIST
SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS FOR EACH CONCEPT Once you've divided
your topic into concepts, try to come up with different words that journalists,
scholars and other writers might use in their articles and books to refer
to each concept. In other words, try to identify synonyms (words that
have the same meaning) or related terms for each concept. For example,
synonyms for the concept of illegal immigration include "illegal
alien," "undocumented alien," and "illegal immigrant." They all have the
same basic meaning. When thinking of synonyms
for your concepts, keep in mind that in order to be thorough in your search,
you should include different tenses or parts of speech (e.g. "immigration"
and "immigrant") and the singular or plural forms of words (e.g. "immigrant"
and immigrants"). To simplify the process of searching for these variations
of search terms, most computerized bibliographic databases offer a feature
called truncation. The truncation feature allows you to
type a truncation symbol at the end of a word or word stem.
This symbol instructs the computer to find all words that begin with the
same set of beginning letters. The truncation symbol can vary from database
to database, but it's usually an asterisk (*), question mark (?), or exclamation
point (!). (The database "help" screens will tell you which is used. EBSCOhost
uses an asterisk.) Thus, on a database that uses an asterisk for truncation,
we could search for "immigration," "immigrant," and "immigrate" by simply
entering: immigra*. You must be careful when truncating,
however, since truncating on a short stem will retrieve words that you
may not want. For example, if you use imm* instead of immigra*,
you would also retrieve records with the words "immerse," "immobile,"
"immortal," "immovable," etc. Listed below are synonyms
and related terms for each concept in our example: Concept #1: pets
. . .
. .dogs
. . .
. .cats
. . . (NOTE: You can use
official subject headings as well as your own keywords when coming up
with synonyms.) STEP 4: LINK
YOUR SYNONYMS TOGETHER USING THE LOGICAL OPERATOR "OR" Use the OR operator
to link together all the synonyms corresponding to each of your concepts:
Search statement #1:
pets OR dogs OR cats Search statement #2:
quality of life OR health OR psychology Search statement #3:
aged OR elderly OR senior citizens OR seniors By placing an OR
between search terms, you're instructing the computer to find records
containing any one or more of the terms. This will broaden your
search considerably. (A simple rhyme to remember is "OR is MORE.")
You now have 3 search
statements that you can use when searching in the Advanced Search option
of a database.
STEP 5: COMBINE
YOUR SETS USING THE LOGICAL OPERATOR "AND" Now that you have created
search statements for each concept, you should combine those statements
with the AND operator so that you retrieve a final set of records
that contain at least one term from each of your concepts. This will narrow
your search results dramatically. EXERCISE IN ADVANCED
SEARCHING
Go to Gale's
InfoTrac OneFile article database. When you are viewing InfoTrac
OneFile's Subject Search screen, use the options at the left
side of the screen (in blue area) to change over to the Advance
Search screen.
2) How
many citations did the database find for this search? __________________________
Display the list of
citations and select an article on the topic from a popular magazine.
Answer the questions below about that article.
(CAUTION:
There are false hits in your results list, so choose carefully! Read
the abstract first in order to learn whether or not the article is
actually about the topic. If you choose a false hit, you will loose
points.) ARTICLE FROM
A POPULAR PUBLICATION: 3) Author(s):
_____________________________________________________________________ Title of article:
__________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Title of Periodical:
_____________________________________________________________ Date: _______________________
This article begins
on page _______ and is ________ pages long. Does the full-text
of the article accompany the citation? YES or NO (circle your answer)
Now select an article
on the topic from a scholarly journal. Answer the questions below
about that article.
HINT: If
you are unsure whether an article is scholarly, look up a description
of the publication in the Reference Book entitled, Magazines for
Libraries. ARTICLE FROM
A SCHOLARLY OR PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATION: 4) Author(s):
_____________________________________________________________________ Title of article:
__________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Title of Periodical:
_____________________________________________________________ Date: _______________________
Volume # and issue #: ____________________ This article begins
on page _______ and is ________ pages long. Does the full-text
of the article accompany the citation? YES or NO (circle your answer) 5) Based on
the results, was this Advanced Search more successful than your previous
keyword search of pets and quality of life and aged? __________________________ CONTINUED: STEP
5 OF ADVANCED SEARCHING In the search, you
combined your three OR statements with AND. The computer will displayed
a final list of citations that will have articles that contain at least
one of our search terms from statement 1, and at least one from statement
2, and at least one from statement 3. Therefore, the search results are
narrowed to our precise topic, keeping in mind of course, the possibility
of false hits. The illustration below offers you a mental picture of what
happens when you combine statements 1, 2, and 3. The shaded area represents
set 4, those records that contain at least one term from each statement. (NOTE: Combining keywords
and sets by using the logical operators OR and AND is using
what's known as Boolean logic. Named after George Boole,
a 19th century British mathematician, it is the fundamental basis of all
advanced keyword searching because it allows you to combine keywords and
sets in these precise ways.) STEP 6: REVISE
YOUR SEARCH IF NECESSARY If your final result
set contains too few, too many, or a high number of false hits, you may
need to revise your search. If your search finds
too few records: If your search finds
too many records: The number of hits,
however, is only your initial assessment. You must also determine how
many records in your result set are pertinent to your topic. You may recall
from Lesson 3 that one of the drawbacks of keyword searching is the likelihood
of retrieving false hits. Sometimes, this happens simply because writers
are using and defining your search terms in ways you didn't anticipate.
The search term "dating," for example, could pull up articles on radiocarbon
dating as well as relationships. The database does not know which one
you are interested in. False hits also occur
when your search terms appear in a record but the article itself is actually
on another topic altogether. In other words, your terms are mentioned
only in passing or in some other context irrelevant to your topic. These
problems are especially apparent in full-text databases or databases with
long abstracts. In the previous assignment,
you looked for periodical articles on your topic by conducting a standard
keyword search on Gale'sInfoTrac OneFile. In a standard keyword
search, you use one word, phrase, or a combination of 2 keywords. You're
now going to try an advanced keyword search since this approach
can often lead to more precise search results. Begin by writing in
the space below the exact wording of your research question. [IMPORTANT:
This must be a full statement of your topic, not merely a word
or phrase. For example, "What is the role of a physician when patients
facing terminal illness request assisted suicide?" - NOT "assisted
suicide".] 6) My topic:
_____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 7) I can divide
my topic into _____ concepts. They are: Concept #1: ________________________________________ Concept #2: ________________________________________ Concept #3: ________________________________________ (NOTE: Your topic should
have at least 2 concepts and not more than 4. Please see
instructor if you're having trouble identifying your concepts.) 8) Write below
your search statements (synonymous terms linked with OR) for each
concept. Be sure to links your terms together with OR.
Then use the Advanced
Search mode and enter your search statements, one statement per line,
in Gale'sInfoTrac OneFile. 9) What is the
total number of hits (citations) that the database retrieved retrieved?
_______ IMPORTANT: If
your search retrieved 0 or 1 hits, please see instructor for help! 10) Choose one
article relevant to your topic from the combined sets and
provide the following information: IMPORTANT: If
you choose an article irrelevant to your research topic, you will loose
points. Author(s): _____________________________________________________________________ Title of article: __________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Title of Periodical:
_____________________________________________________________ Date: _______________________
Volume # and issue #: ____________________ (if given) This article begins
on page _______ and is ________ pages long. Does the full-text
of the article accompany the citation? YES or NO (circle your answer) Is this article from
a popular or scholarly publication? __________________ Does Caņada Library
subscribe to this publication in print? YES or NO (circle your answer) PRINT THE FULL RECORD
FOR THE ARTICLE YOU'VE CHOSEN AND ATTACH IT TO THIS ASSIGNMENT: LESSON 7 - KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER Step 1: Clearly
articulate your research topic or question. Step 2: Divide
your research question into concepts (i.e. main ideas). Step 3: List synonyms
or related terms for each concept. Step 4: Link your
synonyms together using the logical operator "OR." Step 5: Combine
multiple OR statements together using the logical operator "AND." Step 6: Revise
your search if necessary. 11) A student
is planning on researching the following topic: How does automobile
pollution affect global warming? Knowing that a carefully planned
keyword search requires one to divide the research question into main
ideas, the student has come up with the following concepts: Concept #1: automobile
pollution Concept #2: global
warming Concept #3: affect
between What problem do you
see with the way this student has identified the concepts of the research
question? ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 12) The two
most commonly used logical operators are _________ and __________ . 13) By placing
an ________ between search terms, you're instructing the computer to find
records containing any one or more of the terms. This will broaden your
search considerably. 14) In keyword
searching, most commonly you will combine multiple OR statements together
using the logical operator ________. 15) In advanced
keyword searching, the most common strategy used by experienced researchers
is to begin by creating an OR statement (set) which consists of
similar terms that describe one concept. The logical operator used to
combine these similar terms would normally be _______. Then the researcher
would create additional OR statements (sets) of terms, one statement
for each concept in their thesis. The last step would be to combine all
the sets using the logical operator ______ between each set.
Concept #2: quality of life . . .
. . health
. . .
. .
. .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . psychology
. . .
Concept #3: aged . . .
. .senior
citizens. . .
. .seniors.
. .
. .elderly
. . .
(for concept #1)
(for concept #2)
(for concept #3)
RESEARCHING YOUR TOPIC - FINDING PERIODICAL ARTICLES THROUGH ADVANCED
KEYWORD SEARCHING
LESSON 7 - REVIEW THE
CONCEPTS