Slide 1

Transcript: Module Three.  This module will cover five search strategies for successful use of library databases.  These are: identifying key concepts, combining different concepts with the word “and,” identifying synonyms, combining like concepts with the word “or” and truncation.  There will be quiz questions throughout this module.

Module Three

Will cover five search strategies for successful use of library databases.   These are...

1. Identify key concepts

2. Combine different concepts with AND

3. Identify synonyms

4. Combine like concepts with OR

5. Truncation

There will be quiz questions throughout this module.

Slide 2

Transcript: Hi.  Nikki here.  I’m going to show you five simple search strategies that are necessary to successfully use library databases.  You’ll need to use these strategies in order to find articles and books for most of your research assignments. 

Five Simple Search Strategies
necessary to successfully use library databases
need to use these

Research assignments

Slide 3

Transcript: Remember, library databases work differently from Google.  Think of them as very specialized search engines that require specialized search techniques.  When used correctly, library databases are quicker, more efficient and more likely to return better results for your college-level assignments  than free Web search engines like

Google..

Library Databases work differently than Google.

They are very specialized search engines.

They require specialized search techniques.

They are quicker, more efficient, and return better results for college-level assignments.

Slide 4

Transcript: All five strategies will work in most databases - no matter how different they may look from one another.

All five strategies will work in most databases - no matter how different they may look from one another.

Slide 5

Transcript: Using these takes a while to get used to.  I really had to pay close attention to what she was saying, because they’re so different from using Google.

Meet Mike, an Engineering Student.

Slide 6

Strategy One

Slide 7

Transcript: Strategy one: identify the key concepts or keywords related to the topic that you need to search.  Let’s say you’re interested in how the media affects one’s body image.  They key ideas, then, would be “media” and “body image.” 

Strategy One: 

Identify key concepts or keywords related to your topic.

Let's say you're interested in:

how the media affects one's body image.

Key ideas: media

                  body image

Slide 8

Transcript: Notice that we didn’t choose the words “how” or “affect.”  That’s because these words can apply to many different topics, not just ours.  You want to avoid ambiguous words like these and use nouns instead. 

how the media affects one's body image.

Slide 9

Transcript: Because the phrase “body image” has a meaning of its own that’s different from the idea of “body” or the idea of “image,” we will treat it as a single concept: “body image.”

Because the phrase "body image" has a meaning of its own that is different from the idea of "body" or "image," we will treat it as a single concept:  body image.

how the media affects one's body image.

Slide 10

Transcript: At this point you get to decide if you want to review the strategy and then go onto the quiz or go right on to quiz question one.  Just click on the button of your choice.

Slide 12

Strategy Two

Slide 13

Transcript: Strategy two: combine different concepts using the word “and.”    “Media” and “body image.”    The word “and” tells the database to look for items or records in which both concepts are present.

Strategy Two:

Combine different concepts with the word AND.

media and body image

Slide 14

Transcript: Using the word AND in your search strategy narrows your results.

AND narrows your results.

media and body image

Slide 15

Transcript: For example, a search on the cocept body image returns 425 documents.

body image

425 documents found for: body image

Slide 16

Transcript: But when we add a second concept, in this case media, our results are fewer in number and they're also more specific, because they must have both concepts present.

body image and media

45 documents found for:  body image and media

Slide 17

Transcript: Think about what happens when you use Google.  When you type in the words body image “body image,” you receive results on "body image." 

Slide 18

Transcript: Similarly, when we add an additional concept to our search, in this case “media,” we get few, more specific results because now both concepts must be present.

Slide 19

Transcript: The dangerous difference, however, is that in a library database you must use the word AND, you can't just string all the words together like you can in Google.

body image media

0 documents found for: body image media

Slide 20

Transcript: Using the word “and” to combine different concepts narrows your search results. 

Remember:  Using the word AND narrows your search results.

Slide 21

Transcript: You know what to do. 

Button One:  Replay Strategy Two
Button Two:  Continue on to Quiz Question Two

Slide 23

Strategy Three

Slide 24

Transcript: Strategy three: identify synonyms. 

Strategy Three:

Identify synonyms and related words.

Slide 25

Transcript: Since different authors use different words to describe the same topic, we want to think of as many synonyms as we can for our key concepts so that we don’t miss out on anything.

Different Authors
Different Words

Slide 26

Transcript: Television, advertisements and magazines are all different types of media. 

media

television

advertisements

magazines

Slide 27

Transcript: Using synonyms and related words, we can now search for our key concepts four different ways. 

1. body image and media

2. body image and television

3. body image and advertisements

4. body image and magazines

Slide 28

Button One:  Replay Strategy Three
Button Two:  Continue on to Quiz Question Three

Slide 30

Strategy Four

Slide 31

Transcript: Strategy four: combine similar concepts with the word “or” and surround in parenthesis: “media or television.”  In this case, we want the database to look for records that have either the word “media” or the word “television.”

Strategy Four:

Combine similar concepts with OR

and surround in parentheses.

(media or television)

Slide 32

Transcript: Let’s see this strategy in action.  

(media or television)

Slide 33

Transcript: Here we see that a search on the word “media” returns twelve records.

media

12 documents found for:  media

Slide 34

Transcript: But when we add another concept using the word “or,” in this case “television or media,” our results are more than doubled.

(television or media)

OR increases your results.

37 documents found for:  (television or media)

Slide 35

Transcript: Using the word “or” in a search to combine similar concepts will increase your results.

OR increases your results.

Slide 36

Button One:  Replay Strategy Four
Button Two:  Continue on to Quiz Question Four

Slide 38

Strategy Five

Slide 39

Transcript: Strategy five: use truncation to retrieve records that use variant forms of a word.  For example, by inserting the truncation symbol after the letter s in “advertise,” we retrieve “advertise,” “advertising” and “advertisement.”

Strategy Five:

Use the truncation symbol to retrieve records using variant forms of a word.

advertis*

advertise advertising advertisement

Slide 40

Transcript: Google searches for the singular and plural forms of a word automatically.

Retrieves:

advertisement

advertisements

Slide 41

Transcript: Google searches for the singular and plural forms of a word automatically.    But truncation allows you to search for all the different forms of a word, which is way more.

advertis*

advertise

advertised

advertiser

advertises

advertising

advertisement

advertisements

Retrieves:

Slide 42

Transcript: Using truncation in your search increases or expands your search results.  A search on the word “advertisement” retrieves 28 documents. 

Truncation increases or expands your search.

advertisement

28 documents found for advertisement

Slide 43

Transcript: But, as you can see here, using the truncation symbol greatly increases our results.  It also protects against missing relevant articles.

advertis*

300 documents found for:  advertis*

Truncation increases or expands your search.

Slide 44

Transcript: There are a couple important things to keep in mind when using truncation.  The truncation symbol varies by database.  Possibilities include the asterisk, exclamation point, question mark, dollar sign and so on.  Also, don’t over-truncate.  The word “telephone” truncated too early retrieves “telephone,” “telephones,” “television,” “telegraph” and so on.  Likewise, don’t under-truncate or you’ll miss out on important possibilities such as “telephoning” or “telephonic.”

Truncation Advice:

1.  The truncation symbol varies by database.  * ! ? $

2.  Don't over truncate. 

Telephone 

tele* = telephone, telephones,television, telegraph, etc.

3.  Don't under truncate. 

telephone* = You'll miss telephoning and telephonic

Slide 45

Advanced Strategy Use

Slide 46

Transcript: All these strategies can be used alone or you can save some time and combine them into a single search statement as seen here.  Combine different concepts with the word AND.

These strategies can be used alone

or in combination...

(television or media or advertis*) and body image

Combine different concepts with AND.

Slide 47

Transcript: Combine similar concepts with OR.

(television or media or advertis*) and body image

Combine similar concepts with OR.

Slide 48

Transcript: Use Truncation to retrieve records with variant forms of a word.

(television or media or advertis*) and body image

Use Truncation to retrieve records with variant forms of a word.

Slide 49

Button One:  Replay Strategy Five
Button Two:  Continue on to Quiz Question Five

Slide 51

Transcript: In the next module we’re going to see how to put these strategies to work using MadCat and library journal databases.

Coming up... We'll see how to put these strategies to work in MadCat, the library catalog, and in library journal databases.

Slide 52

Transcript: Remember, there are five essential search strategies for using library databases.  These are: identifying keywords or key concepts, combining different concepts with “and,” identifying synonyms, combining similar concepts with “or” and the using truncation to search for records with variant forms of a word.

In this module you learned…

Five essential search strategies for using library databases:

1.  Identify keywords or key concepts.

2.  Combine different concepts with AND.

3.  Identify synonyms.

4.  Combine similar concepts with OR.

5.  Use truncation to search for records with variant forms of a word.

Slide 53

End of Module Three

Click on Module 4: MADCAT LIBRARY CATALOG in the right-hand menu to continue on with CLUE.