BO4137: Horticulture Research and Grant Writing

Know your Tools

One of the keys to searching for information efficiently and effectively is knowing when to use what tool.That may seem obvious, but it's an important concept and can save you a lot of time.

Databases: organized information such as articles, studies and books that are searchable by fields such as subject and author. The information is evaluated to make sure it meets certain standards.They usually have advanced features so you can refine your search and often have preferred search terms (subject headings or tags). Databases often focus on particular topics such as medicine and psychology. For Example, PubMed is the most well-known database for health practitioners in the United States.PsycInfo is the database of choice for the field of psychology.

Search Engines:  employ software called spiders to find information on the World Wide Web. The information isn't organized; spiders match keywords without regard to content or credibility. Search engines cast broad nets and retrieve multiple formats. Search engines can't retrieve information that is available only in subscription databases. Google is the best known search engine.

When should I use a database?

• When you're doing research/writing papers and need high-quality, often peer reviewed information.
• When you're looking for information on a focused topic such as meditation for smoking cessation.
• When you're searching for information that isn't available for free and can't be found by search engines.

When should I use a search engine?

• For finding background information.
• When a topic or subject is obscure or emerging such as a virus that was just identified.
• When you need to cast a broad net and need to look for multiple formats.
• You want to verify a fact, need a definition or other readily available information
• You're looking for current or breaking news.

Searching usually requires you to combine one or more concepts- you can do this by using "boolean operators" 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 or Limiters 

In addition to the search terms you enter, you can refine your search results by using filter such as date or article type.

Filters are built-in robust searches that each database has to help pull out a particular type of search 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 you are able to filter by date range instead. 

Other filters often include publication type: 

e.g. peer reviewed, periodical, clinical trial

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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