INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE SEARCH
A Brief Guide to Information Searching for Students of
the Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada
prepared by Literature Searching Team
Library, Faculty of Medicine, UGM
2012
OUTLINE :
• What is literature search?
• Background of literature search
• Types of publications
• Search tools
• Stages in searching
• Tips for Effective Searches
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WHAT IS LITERATURE SEARCH?
• Literature search is an exhaustive search for published
information on a subject conducted systematically
using all available bibliographic finding tools, aimed at
locating as much existing material on the topic as
possible, an important initial step of any serious
research project.
[Link]
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BACKGROUND OF LITERATURE SEARCH
• Availability of various types of academic/scientific
publications that support learning, teaching, and research
activities.
• These publications are growing enormously over years, in
line with the advancement of information and
communication technology.
• Literature search is one of core academic skills that
students and academicians as learned societies need to
master to help in learning, doing research project or other
academic tasks.
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OBJECTIVES OF LITERATURE SEARCHING AT FM UGM
• To introduce types of scientific publications in
health/medicine
• To introduce search tools used in literature search
• To introduce scientific publications available locally at the
Library, Faculty of Medicine, GMU and show how to access
and locate them
• To introduce health information on the Internet (online
resources) and how to access them
• To practice searching
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TYPES OF PUBLICATIONS
• Scientific/academic/scholarly
• Text/Reference books
• Journals (BMJ, JAMA, NEJM, The Lancet, etc)
• Research reports (papers, theses, dissertations, etc)
• Non scientific
• Fiction books (novels, comics)
• Magazines
• Newspapers
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SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
• Written by and aimed at academic community (students,
lecturers, researchers, experts)
• Disseminate research findings
• Articles cite resources and are peer reviewed
• High quality and reliable information
• Slow to be published due to review process
• Access if often fee-based
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NON SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
• Entertaining, relaxing
• Readable and light weight
• Current, popular issues/topics
• Not always reliable
• Transient, easily replaced by newer issues
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CHALLENGES IN LITERATURE SEARCH
• Growing quantity of publications may cause problems in
searching and browsing (recall vs precision)
• Quality of information (unreliable for some reasons)
• Availability of information needed
• Constraints in access due to various reasons (technical,
economical, policy)
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SKILLS IN LITERATURE SEARCH
• Able to identify various kinds of publications
• Able to know and use various search tools
• Able to conduct efficient and effective searches and
implement relevant search strategies
• Able to evaluate the quality of information
1010
SEARCH TOOLS
• Catalog
• Web search engines
• Search terms
• Subject headings
• Boolean operators
• Wildcard/Truncation
• Nesting
• Limits
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CATALOG
• A comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps, and
other materials in a given collection, arranged in
systematic order to facilitate retrieval (usually by author,
title, and/or subject).
• In most modern libraries, the card catalog has been
converted to machine-readable bibliographic records and
is available online.
[Link]
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WEB SEARCH ENGINE
• A web search engine is a tool to search for information on
the World Wide Web. The search results are usually
presented in a list of results and are commonly called hits.
The information may consist of web pages, images,
information and other types of files.
([Link]
• Search engines:
Google and Google Scholar – find out the differences
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SEARCH TERMS
• Search term are sometimes also referred as keywords.
They can be a subject, topic, or any distinct word used
as a point of access.
• Using appropriate search terms is essential in the
process of searching.
• Thus, before conducting a search it is necessary to
brainstorm for possible search terms that represent our
search queries.
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SUBJECT HEADINGS
• Subject headings are a list of controlled language
commonly used to classify library material housed in the
collection. They represent the key topic of a publication.
• An example is MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)
developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM)
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BOOLEAN LOGIC
Boolean is a system of logic developed by the English
mathematician George Boole (1815-64) that allows the user to
combine words or phrases representing significant concepts
when searching an online catalog or bibliographic database by
keywords. ([Link]
Logical commands or “operators” commonly used in searching
are AND, OR and NOT.
In some databases AND operator is represented by a symbol +
and sometimes it is only used implicitly (no need to type it
between terms).
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BOOLEAN OPERATOR
AND Operator
(to combine two concepts and narrow a search)
the AND operator is used to combine two concepts
e.g. hip AND fracture – in the shaded area; retrieves
items containing all the search terms
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BOOLEAN OPERATOR
OR Operator
(to broaden search by including synonyms and related terms in the query)
renal OR kidney – in the shaded area with the overlap in the
middle having both search terms; retrieves items containing
either search term or both search terms
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BOOLEAN OPERATOR
NOT operator
(to exclude unwanted records from search results)
pig NOT guinea – in the shaded area; eliminates
items in 2nd term (guinea) or both terms
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GROUPING/NESTING
Nesting, represented by symbol ( ), is a technique of searching
that considers similar concepts, indicated by logical command OR
and expressed in different terms, as a single term.
Examples :
(fever OR febrile)
(paracetamol OR acetaminophen)
(kidney OR renal)
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TRUNCATION/WILDCARD
• Truncation is a searching technique used in database in
which a word ending is replaced by simbols.
([Link]
• Symbol of truncation can be (*) , (?) or ($) depending on the
database
Examples :
When we type child* the result of our search will be
documents that contain the words child, children, childhood,
or childcare
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LIMITS/FILTERS
• Most databases offer limit functions to help users limit search
results that are too broad or too many
• Limits are commonly specified according to:
- date of publication
- type of publications (books, journals, news, etc)
- age group
- language
- sex (male/female)
- type of files
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STAGE IN SEARCHING
• Define search topics
• Choose appropriate search terms/keywords that represent
the topic
• Decide where to search/which sources to use (e.g. library
catalog, online databases)
• Develop search strategy by optimizing search tools
• Observe search results
• Revise the search as necessary
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SEARCHING IN PUBMED:
An example
Pubmed
Search Phrase
( 30-07-2012)
(child* OR infant*) 2,191,167
(child* OR infant) AND malaria OR tuberculosis 210,899
(child* OR infant*) AND malaria AND
466
tuberculosis
(child* OR infant*) AND malaria OR
2,299
tuberculosis AND Southeast Asia
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TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE SEARCHES
• Plan your search – identify the words that represent the
topic of your search
• Avoid using too broad or general terms, use specific terms
instead to get limited but relevant results.
• Use limit/filter functions as necessary
• Create an account. Most online databases allow you to
sign up for an account/personal folder in their database
that helps you manage searches, search results or
references, set up preferences, alerts, and many others.
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SEARCHING PRACTICE AT FM UGM
• Sessions for searching practice are carried out in smaller
groups of students at different slot of time; some are
undertaken in parallel.
• The materials include local collections (books, journals,
research papers, multimedia) and online databases
(ScienceDirect, EBSCO Medline with Full Text, Pubmed,
ClinicalKey and other relevant sources in the Internet).
• Grouping of students in smaller size will be announced
prior to practice.
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This Power Point Presentation is compiled by
Team of Literature Searching
Library Faculty of Medicine, UGM.
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