1. Effective Searching Strategies and Techniques

2. Objectives Understanding the importance of effective searching Development of guidelines for planning and implementing searches Gain experience of structuring effective searches in a range of different environments

3. Strategy Define your information need Decide which sources to use Find out how they function Run your search Review and refine you search

4. Information Required Phase 1 What sort of information are you looking for? Who is going to use the information? Phase 2 Keywords Selection Keywords from the article Related Key Concepts Synonyms Alternative spellings Plurals or Capitalisation

5. Key Words Selection Search for Health Implications of Water Pollution Keywords: ‘water’ ‘pollution’ ‘health’ Concepts: ‘Environmental Degradation’ or ‘agricultural management’ or ‘health’ Synonyms: rivers, lakes, sea,’domestic water, ‘oil spills’, chemical, biological, etc Alt. Spells: none Plurals: river(s), lake(s), disease(s) Capitals: Name of a specific lake, disease, region

6. Search Comparisons AcidHalogen Acid Hydrochloric Acid Google26,000,000240,000531,000 Cross Reference--80,500 Blackwell All Journals98,1905521,068 Chemistry18,1956979 All Journals with “”-11,018 Chemistry with “”-078 Search Slides

7. Sources What sources are appropriate for your information need? Chemistry Multidisciplinary Familiarization with databases

8. Search Features in Resources FeaturesAvailableSymbol/Details Boolean ANDYesAND Boolean ORYesOR Boolean NOTYesNOT Phrase SearchingYes“ ” Truncation/Wildcard $, ?, *,! Case SensitiveNo - Fields - Full Text, Article, Keyword, Abstract Stop Words Blackwell Synergy

9. Boolean Operators

10. Other Features Disciplines and Availability Search Criteria Disciplines Subjects Search Types Basic Advance Saved Quick

11. QUESTIONS

12. THANKS