This tutorial will help you build the skills and knowledge necessary to research herbs and herbal science topics.
Happy searching!
Not all searches are created equal - knowing about different approaches, and thinking about which is the most effective for your intended purpose is a skill you need to develop as academic and clinical researchers!
| Information need | Search type | Resource |
|---|---|---|
| Facts and general information | Quick search | Google, print/online Reference works (dictionaries etc.), monographs, websites |
| Deep understanding | Exhaustive | Scientific Journals, Books, |
| Clinical | PICO | Research Databases, Scientific Journals |
| Starting a research project | Exploratory search | Google, Systematic Reviews, Reference works |
When you're looking for studies, you may need to find either primary or secondary research or both. It's also important to understand the term peer review (sometimes referred to as "refereed").
Primary research: Original information such as studies, clinical trials, reports, dissertations, technical reports and data that hasn't been interpreted. You may need to look for primary studies when there isn't much research on a particular topic.
Secondary research: Research that has been evaluated, summarized and/or synthesized such as literature (or systematic) review articles, textbooks and some clinical databases.
Peer review: An editorial process used by certain journals to evaluate research articles or studies submitted for publication. A panel of experts (peers) anonymously assess the methodological quality, pertinence, value, etc. of submissions, often offering suggestions for revision before making a final decision to reject or accept them. Journals using this process are called peer reviewed (or refereed).
Most complex searches should include both keywords and subject headings. What's the difference? Keywords are matched word-for-word by the database which can result in many irrelevant results; subject headings provide a consistent way to retrieve information that may use different terminology for the same concepts.
Topic idea: How has Echinacea been used in relation to colds?
Research Question: Is Echinacea effective for reducing the length of colds?
Keywords and concepts: Echinacea | Cold
| Keyword: | Echinacea | Cold |
| Synonyms | purple cone flower (common name) | common cold |
| Broader Terms | asteracaea/compositae (plant genus) | respiratory illness |
| Narrower Terms | echinacea angustifolia (specific species) | nasal congestion, coughing, sneezing |
Use subject terms to improve the relevance of your search results in databases such as PubMed and Review of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants. You'll be learning more about subject headings in Research Methods for Herbal Science winter quarter.
Subject terms are controlled (preferred) vocabulary similar to tagging, and assigned by professionals.They help you find all of the documents about a topic even if the document doesn't contain the words you're searching for.* For example, if you looked for articles about "cats" using just keywords, you might not find an article that only used the word "feline". Searching with subject terms retrieves any article about that subject regardless of the specific words authors use.
*Because of variations in indexing (assigning subject headings), your search may still miss some articles on your topic.
The tool for finding subject terms varies by database: Thesaurus (PsycINFO) | MeSH (in PubMed) | Emtree (in Embase)
| Keyword | Subject Term (MeSH Term) | Scope note (definition of the term according to the database) | Also finds any articles with: |
| advil | Ipuprofen |
A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent with analgesic properties used in the therapy of rheumatism and arthritis.
|
Other named drugs with same active ingredient. |
| nose bleed | epistaxis | Bleeding from the nose |
Nosebleed |
Searching usually requires you to combine one or more concepts- you can do this by using Boolean operators (connectors) to create multifaceted searches.Boolean operators include AND | OR | NOT
AND: Returns the intersection of two sets: results contain all the search terms.
Searching for (cognitive AND therapy) finds items that contain both cognitive and therapy.
OR: Returns the sum of two sets: results contain at least one term.
Searching for (cognitive OR therapy) finds items that contain either cognitive or therapy (or both terms).
NOT: Returns the difference between two sets: result contains no records with the term following the NOT operator.
Searching for (cognitive NOT therapy) finds items that contain cognitive but not therapy.
Use "NOT" with caution! Searching for (heart NOT lung) would exclude a record that contains the statement, “We examined heart but not lung,” which is likely to be a relevant find!
Filters (limiter)
In addition to the search terms you enter, you can refine your results by using filters such as date, article or publication type.
Filters help retrieve a search set that would be difficult to achieve using keywords.
e.g. trying to search for documents published between 1990 and 1991 using keywords would be very difficult - would you have to enter every date between 1990 and 1991? Would the database be able to tell if the number was the date of publication, or the page number?
This is why the date range filter is useful.
You can also often filter to only show articles that are available as Full Text PDFs - this can be a helpful tool if you need something in a hurry. If the library doesn't have an article in full text, you can request it and get it within 2-3 days. See Databases/Request an Article.
Funnel Image Credit: By RRZE (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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