Databases

This lesson was created by Barbara Kobritz, Instructional Services Librarian at TC3. Comments may be emailed to kobritb@tc3.edu

In this lesson you will learn to focus your database searches by:

1. Using subject headings
2. Using the "AND" operator
3. Using various types of limiters

Quick Tips: Searching Academic Search Complete

This lesson will show you how to find information in Academic Search Complete (ASC). Here are some basic things you need to know before we start:

• ASC is a collection of articles – many millions of them.
• Each article in ASC previously appeared in print. Most of them were in a newspaper, a magazine, or a journal. There are also book chapters and reports.
• TC3 subscribes to about 40 different databases for your use. Some are specialized. The more general databases include ASC and ProQuest. For example if you take a literature course, you'll use the Literature Resource Center database.
• This lesson will use ASC as an example, but all databases work pretty much the same way. The interfaces look different, and you may have to do things a little differently, but the principles will remain the same.

Getting to the Databases:

1. Go to the TC3 Home Page
2. Click on Library
3. Under Research Tab
4. Click on Articles and Databases
5. Click on General Multi-Subject databases
6. Click on Academic Search Complete

You will be asked for your TC3 ID number. Click in the box, type your 9-digit number and click on Authenticate. This is the main search screen. It allows you to enter one, tow, or three terms to specify the kind of articles you need. Let's do a sample search. The text will describe the search as done in Spring 2010. If you are doing a live search there will be more material.

There's a lot of interest in alternative energy right now because of global warming, and also because of economic problems. Let's look for information about alternative energy.

1. In a search box, type the phrase alternative energy
2. Click on Search
3. View your results

This search found 1369 articles that were originally published in various types of print publications between 1971 and 2010.

Clicking on the title of an article will take us to the citation view. This view gives us all the information we need for our citation, plus an abstract that summarizes the content of the article. If the abstract suggests that the article is a good one for us, we can click on the Full Text link to see the article itself. The PDF view shows us what the article looked like when it originally appeared in print.

When we find an article we want, it's simple to retrieve it for later use. From the PDF view you can print a document out, save it to your memory stick or e-mail it to yourself as an attachment.

Returning to the citation view just for a second, note that you have the same options from this view. You will be printing, saving or sending the entire article, not just the citation window.

Now we've been all the way through basic database Navigation, from starting the search to retrieving an article. That's the easy part. If you can google, you can navigate a database. Now let's get a few tips on Searching.

Instead of looking through thousands of articles that are sort of what you want, your goal should be to narrow down your search to no more than a few hundred that are highly relevant. This part is harder but your efforts will pay off with better results in less time.

We'll start by clicking on Result List to get back to the results of our original search.

We began the search by looking for alternative energy, a term that just came to mind for this topic. We got 1369 articles. But databases use specific words and phrases to categorize information. Generally, using the database's suggested words (subject terms) will get better, more relevant results. In Academic Search when we enter a search, we get some suggestions in the left-hand menu in the box called Subject: Thesaurus Term.

Note that there's usually a "Show More" button at the bottom of the list for even more suggestions. Right away the list of subject terms lets us know that, in ASC, articles about this topic aren't described as alternative energy, but rather as renewable energy sources.

Here's a search result with alternative energy replaced by renewable energy sources. This time we have 5290 articles, whereas we got only 1369 before. In other words, we missed most of the relevant articles by using the word that came to mind instead of the subject term.

OK, but we're trying to narrow down the search, right? Well, yes and no. The reason we want to use the right subject term, even if we get more articles at first, is to make sure we're looking at all the most relevant articles. Then we can narrow down the search by focusing on an appropriate sub-topic.

One suggestion that's evident from the subject list is to narrow the topic to a specific type of renewable energy, for example solar energy, or biomass energy. Either one would make a suitable narrower topic, especially for an informative paper or speech.

Another way to narrow the focus would be to stay with the broad concept - all types of renewable energy - and look at an aspect of the issue such as energy policy. Policy is the government's role. That's an interesting aspect of many issues, and one that might lend itself to a persuasive essay.

In our new search we'll use renewable energy source in the first box AND energy policy in the second. That “AND” is important. It means that we're looking for only those articles that address both concepts. When we add more terms this way, we're being pickier and we'll get fewer articles. In fact, adding energy policy to this search brought the number of articles down from 5290 to 398.

Notice that search terms are almost always nouns or noun phrases and that they are specific. Keep this in mind whenever you search for information in a database. Don't use long phrases such as effects of watching television violence on children. Use: television AND violence AND children. Simple, concrete concepts.

By the way, another good way to focus your topic is to scan down the list of articles and read the titles. Among many other topics, this search found articles about teaching kids about renewable energy in the classroom. That suggests an interesting sub-topic for education majors, one we probably wouldn't have thought of on our own. Other articles address the financial questions about making renewable energy viable. Although this is an important question for all of us, it might be an especially appealing essay topic for business majors.

One of the articles on our list is about another source of renewable energy – methane gas from dairy cows. It wasn't suggested by using the Subject list on the search screen, but here it is. This could be of great interest in a dairy-intensive area such as ours. Click on the title to look at the citation view. The list of Subject Terms, found on the citation view, will help you search efficiently for more articles on the same topic.

As I look through the articles about renewable energy sources and energy policy another subject heading, sustainable development, grabs my attention. Now we're talking about the government's role (policy) in fostering renewable energy to support economic development. What is the government doing? Or what should it be doing? Now there's a topic!

Even if energy policy isn't your thing, this process shows how thinking a little, writing a little, searching and reading a little, thinking a little more, writing a little more, finding and reading some new things…can result in a truly engaging project for both you and your teacher. You can make research boring if you want to, but it doesn't have to be!

One final tip for narrowing searches: pay attention to the dates. Academic Search has articles well back into the 1800s. For this project, if we want to see articles from the last 5 years only, we can change 1971 to 2005, and click on Update.

That reduced this search result from 398 articles to 306. Keep in mind that the best dates of publication will depend on your project. There was a big energy crisis in the 1970s, which generated a lot of information about government policy and alternatives to fossil fuels. A comparison of ideas then and now could be a truly fascinating project from a political, historical, business or sociological perspective.

Navigating Academic Search Complete: A Summary

1. Start with your own words.
2. Click on the title to see the citation view.
3. Read the abstract to decide if you want the full article.
4. Retrieve the full article with the Full Text or PDF link.
5. Print, save to your memory stick, or e-mail the article to yourself from either the full-text view or the citation view.
6. Use the Result List link to return to the list of articles.

To refine your search in Academic Search Complete:

Start with your own words. Then check and see what subject terms the database uses. Look in the Thesaurus Term box on the left-hand menu, and also check the Subject Term field of any articles you find interesting. Stick with nouns and noun phrases of one, two, or three words. Don't put in long phrases or questions. (EX: Use baseball AND steroids rather than effects of the steroid scandal on baseball.) Put one concept in each search box. Limit by date if that's reasonable for your project.

Finally, a little secret. Many searches, if not most, do not go as smoothly as this example. If your search doesn't work – ask for help! Your teachers, the librarians, and the tutors all want to see you succeed, and even enjoy your writing/research projects. Research and writing go hand in hand. As you write and learn about your topic, you may come back to look for information once, twice, many times. The writing tutors and librarians are happy to help you along the way. Visit us at the Writing & Research Center on the second floor of the Baker Commons.

Last update: Friday, November 12, 2010