# Welcome to SMIRK Unit
3 - Searching and
databases

- How to search
- Keywords
- Finding information
- Databases
- Why should I use databases?
- The internet
- Top tips on Google searching
- Back to main index

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# How to search

Take time to think about what types of information resources you will need for your assignment.
For some assignments you will need your notes from lectures, plus key text books from your reading lists and journal articles you have found on the topic.
For others you will need more detailed information such as statistics or standards or even primary data such as survey data or results of experiments. Let's consider how you can select keywords for your search. There are three main steps:

| Step one: Divide your search up into key concepts Most searches will involve several elements which will need to be considered separately. For example, the use of computers by elderly people has two - computers and elderly people.
| Step two: Search for keyword variations Synonyms - for example automobile or car American or alternative spelling - for example colour or color Abbreviations - for example ATM, BSI Truncation or wildcards - for example comput? for computers or computing, organi?ation for organization or organisation
| Step three: Put it all together You can get better results if you use symbols and qualifying terms when searching: AND + to narrow a search - gets fewer results OR <> to broaden a search - gets more results NOT ~ to eliminate unwanted words

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# Keywords

Think of a topic in your subject area - perhaps an essay title from later on in the term. Now fill in the boxes below to formulate your keyword search:

Step 1 1. 2. 3. 4. | Divide your topic into key concepts:
Step 2 1 2 3 4 | For each of the key concepts above think of possible keyword variations: or or or or or or or or
Step 3 Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4 | Step 3 - Now put it all together: or or AND/OR/NOT or or AND/OR/NOT or or AND/OR/NOT or or

Once you have formulated your key words or key concepts search you can enter them into databases, search engines and the library catalogue to retrieve relevant information for your topic.

####

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# Finding information

#### Books

We have a guide to using the catalogue to find relevant books, or you can watch our vidcast on finding ebooks:

Remember, if you need a reminder of how to locate resources in the library, the librarian is probably your most useful resource!

#### Journals

The next pages will help you find the journal articles you need.

####

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# Databases

A database is a searchable collection of records pointing to published information. Databases can store, index and retrieve information. For the purposes of your assignments, your tutors use the term databases to refer to database products from external suppliers. One example would be CINAHL. Some databases are free but the library subscribes to many others.
Some other information providers can be on the dividing line between a database or a host service. A host service makes available many individual databases under one search system. If you refer to one of these when writing up your search strategy, you should name the individual database you have used, or name the subject search, an example of this would be the Proquest Central service which covers individual databases such as PsycInfo, but if you did a more general search, you could refer to the Proquest Social Science Search. If in doubt, check with your lecturer or Academic Development Tutor.
Some services are hosts, so don't refer to them as databases when writing up - an example would be EBSCO.
The library catalogue is best described in exactly these words.
Internet search engines (like Google Scholar) also can be used to find useful information, but in academia they are known as search engines.
What information do they contain?
Some databases are general and cover all subject areas (like the Discover search on the main library web page), while others focus on a particular discipline. Some contain specialist subject information such as market research reports or industry standards. The key function of most of them however, is to act as an index to journal articles (or maybe individual chapters within a particular book). However, some may also find books and reports.

####

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# Why should I use
databases?

Time:
There could be many journals which contain articles relevant to your assignment. However, the library catalogue does not index individual articles. Looking through individual journals would take a very long time. Using databases is a much quicker and more effective way of finding this information. You will be able to search across hundreds of journal titles simultaneously.

Reliabilty and quality:
'Bibliographic' databases usually contain references, abstracts and sometimes full text articles which have been carefully selected by subject specialists. They can therefore be used with more confidence than items found by internet search engines like Google.

Convenience:
In some cases you will be able to read a full text electronic version of the article online. You won't even have to come to the library if you use a computer elsewhere, either on or off campus.

####

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# The internet

Probably the most popular way of finding information is searching the internet. More and more information is being published this way, including web pages, blogs and wikis.

To find information on the Internet you can use a search engine such as Google or better still Google Scholar. This guide will show you how to search Google effectively.

The web is most people's favourite information tool. It is very easy to search, it can be used anywhere and there are no passwords to remember. It will take you anywhere you want to go - or will it?
No one search engine searches the entire web. Even Nikesh Arora, then the chief of Google Europe admitted in 2005 that " less than 10% of the world's information is online today. The remaining 90% is still out there on television programmes, on radio stations and in books in libraries" (Burrell 2005)
Users of search engines need to spend a lot of time thinking critically about the results presented. Anyone can publish anything.

Don't be caught out by hoax sites or by misleading scholarship.

Other sections will explain what databases are available at GCU and give some top tips for their use.

###### Reference
Burrell, Ian. (Monday 6th June 2005) Nikesh Arora: we're living in a Google world. The Independent. [Online] Available from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/nikesh-arora-were-living-in-a-google-world-493163.html [Accessed 28th October 2008].

####

######
SMIRK by Imperial College, Loughborough University and the University of Worcester, modified by Marion Kelt Glasgow Caledonian University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.gcu.ac.uk/library/SMILE/

# Top tips for Google
searching

Google is the best known and most popular internet search engine, probably because it is so easy to use. However, the quality and usefulness of the results depends on what you type in the search box! Knowing how to enter your search in order to get the most relevant results is quite a skill. We have already talked about keywords and understanding the question now let's look at Google.

Beginners tips for improving your search results

Unless you specify otherwise, Google automatically searches for all the words you type in to appear anywhere in the webpage or document, not necessarily next to each other.

- Search for a phrase - Use speech marks (“”) to search for words side by side, like “Tony Blair” 2005 election.
- Search for alternative words - Add OR to search for alternative words for example, university OR college OR “higher education”.
- Remove words from a search - Use a minus (-) symbol before the word to remove them from a search. For example Europe -EU will find anything mentioning Europe which does not refer to the EU.
- Fill in blanks - Use an asterisk (*) to replace a whole word or number, like “Top * destinations in Spain” will return hits including “top 10 destinations in Spain” and “top holiday destinations in Spain”.

Advanced Google searching and internet search strings

If you are confident with the basics of Google searching, the next level of search skills is using ‘search strings’. These are what advanced Internet searchers use to find exactly what they are looking for. A search string is comprised of a number of search commands which are typed in together.

Google have a full list of search commands. As an introduction, here are some of the main search commands you can use:

- site:[website domain] Limits results to that web domain. For example headache site:nhs.uk will search for the word ‘headache’ on the NHS webpages, while “international aid” site:gov.* will search for the phrase ‘international aid’ appearing on any government website (including gov.uk, gov.au, gov.ru, and so on).
- filetype:[file extension] Limits results to documents with certain file extensions. For example: filetype:pdf will return only pdfs, while filetype:ppt will return only PowerPoint presentations. Useful file extensions to know include: doc (Word), xls (Excel), ppt (PowerPoint), pdf (Adobe Acrobat), swf (Flash), mp3 and wma (music), mpg and wmv (video).
- [number]..[number] Searches for all numbers in that range. It can be particularly effective for date searching, like “Luther King” 1963..1968 will find anything referring to Martin Luther King between those dates.
- related:[web address] Finds similar pages to the web address you type in. For example: related:google.com finds other search engines.
- link:[web address] Returns webpages which link to that web address – often these will be pages on a similar topic.
- ~[word] Instructs Google to search for that word and any synonyms. For example: ~university will find any result which includes the word university or similar words such as college.
- Tip: Search commands work in reverse if you use a minus symbol. For example, to cut out all results from government websites, you might include -site:gov.* in your search, or to cut out Word documents from your results you might include: -filetype:doc.

Example Search String

For example, here is a search string you might use to find PowerPoint presentations about Martin Luther King’s speeches given between 1963 and 1967: “Luther King” ~speech 1963..1967 filetype:ppt.

This example consists of four components:

1) The phrase “Luther King”.
2) The thesaurus word ‘speech’.
3) The date range 1963 to 1967.
4) The file type ‘ppt’.

####

######
SMIRK - Top tips for Google searching by InfoSkills project, UEL edited by Marion Kelt, GCUis licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://infoskills.uelconnect.org.uk/pages/guides/122/making_the_most_of_google.html