Searching the Literature planning a search using information resources effectively

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Searching the Literatureplanning a searchusing
information resources effectively

• Applied Psychology
• November 2006

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Gathering information

• 1 definitions
• 2 search strategy
• 3 choose resources
• 4 begin searches
• 5 refine searches
• 6 note the source of information used

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What are you looking for?

• Planning is the key
• look carefully at your topic
• break it down into concepts or themes e.g.how
  reliable is eyewitness testimony?

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Boolean operators

• AND
• both words must be present in the record for it
  to be retrieved
• OR
• either word or both must be present in the record
  for it to be retrieved
• NOT
• the first word must be present, but not if the
  second is, for it to be retrieved. Use with
  care!

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Boolean operators
OR
AND
eyewitness OR testimony
NOT
eyewitness AND testimony
eyewitness NOT testimony
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Boolean operators

• use the Boolean operators to help you express
  your search logically e.g.

AND
AND
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Synonyms and spellings

• think about other terms which mean the same i.e.
  synonyms, or related terms
• remember alternative spellings e.g. US vs British

AND
AND
OR
OR
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Widening a search

• Other options with keyword searching
• use truncation to pick up plurals or other word
  endings
• e.g. testimon testimony, testimonies
• use wildcards to pick up spelling variants
• e.g. behavio?r behavior, behaviour
• use adjaceny for words appearing in the same
  sentence
• e.g. nature SAME nuture nature nurture, nature
  versus nurture, nurture as opposed to nature,...

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Limiting a search

• Can you make your search more specific?
• For example
• English language
• Date of publication (last 5 years?)
• Type of publication (review articles?)
• Type of population (human? animal?)

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Pair work

• Using the search grid
• choose your own search question or the example
  given
• break it down into key terms
• think of synonyms, alternative spellings and
  plurals, etc
• decide which Boolean operators are required

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Selecting your resource(s)

• what kind of information do you want?
• how much information do you want?
• which finding aids cover this type of
  information? e.g.
• Library Catalogue for books
• databases such as WoK for journal articles
• LexisNexis Professional for newspaper articles
• Intute for web links

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All available via the Library Web pages
http//www.dur.ac.uk/library/
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Practical

• First connect to the internet
• From the University home page click on
• Current Students Gateway Library Resources
  Subject information Psychology Information
  skills AppPsych Training 2
• Follow the workbook instructions and use the
  online tutorial for Web of Knowledge