• Topic Searching
• Narrowing a Search
• Broadening a Search
• Searching for Literature Reviews in BIOSIS
• Searching for Authors in BIOSIS

Topic Searching

Most article databases offer features that allow you to maximize the number of relevant results you retrieve with a search while minimizing the number of extraneous results. The Bio1B Library Assignment focuses on the database BIOSIS; however, most of the search strategies discussed here are applicable in other databases as well.

Starting your search

Once you've chosen your topic, it's a good idea to think about how you're going to approach searching for articles and craft a search strategy. Creating a search strategy may involve the following steps:

1. Break your topic down into concepts.

   For example, you may be writing a paper about the impacts of climate change on marine mammals. The primary concepts in this topic would be climate change and marine mammals

2. Think about synonyms that also express those concepts. This will give you a wider array of terms to use in constructing your search, helping you to retrieve a higher number of relevant articles.

   For example, a synonym for climate change might be global warming. You may also want to express marine mammals by individual taxa, such as whales, seals, etc.

3. Select an appropriate database in which to begin your search. You may find that you need to use multiple databases, depending on the complexity of your topic and the number of resources you need to find. The Bioscience Library's list of biology-related article databases may be a useful starting point in selecting a database.

Building your search using AND/OR

AND:

• is used to join two search terms such that the results include BOTH terms
• narrows a search to fewer results
• should be used to join terms describing different concepts
• example: primates AND behavior

Note: AND is the default connector in BIOSIS. If you enter a string of search terms, such as hummingbird pollination flower, BIOSIS will assume that they are connected with AND. This is not true in all databases, so it's a good idea to use AND just in case!

OR:

• is used to join search terms such that the results include EITHER term
• broadens a search to more results
• should be used to join synonyms; terms describing the same concept
• example: migration OR movement

Parentheses: if you're using both AND and OR in your search, use parentheses to group together terms connected with OR.

• Less effective: global warming OR climate change AND marine mammal
  
  This search will retrieve every record that includes global warming, whether or not it has anything to do with marine mammals. It will also retrieve records that include both climate change and marine mammal.


• More effective: (global warming OR climate change) AND marine mammal
  
  This search will retrieve all records that include marine mammal and either global warming or climate change

Narrowing a Search

The strategies described here are helpful in refining a search if you've retrieved a large number of irrelevant records

Phrase searching

Enclosing two or more words in quotes will search for those words as a phrase. For example, a search on "marine mammal" will retrieve all records in which the words marine and mammal occur together, but no records in which they occur separately.

A common error is to enclose too many words in quotes. Only words that usually occur together should be enclosed in quotes. Usually, phrase searching on more than two words will limit your search too much.

• Less effective:
• "primary production in tropical rainforests"
• "coevolution of hummingbirds and flowers"
• "evolution of primate behavior"
• "phylogeny of plant family Brassicaceae"

• More effective:
• "climate change"
• "wildlife management"
• "primary production"
• "tropical rainforest"

Limits

Most article databases provide options to limit searches by various criteria. In BIOSIS, it's possible to limit searches by:

• Date
• Document Type (article, book chapter, etc.)
• Literature Type (such as literature reviews... learn more)
• Language
• Major Concept (Ecology, Behavior, etc.)
• Taxonomic Data

All of these options are available in the "Refine Results" sidebar, which is visible in the results screen after you've done an initial search in BIOSIS.

The BIOSIS quick guide contains additional information about searching in BIOSIS.

Broadening a Search

The following strategies may be helpful if your search has retrieved too few results.

Add synonyms with OR

Adding synonyms to your search is a powerful way to retrieve more results. For instance, an author may write about climate change but not mention global warming. By incorporating (global warming OR climate change) into your search, cover more of the possible ways in which that concept can be expressed. More about using OR

One common error is to use OR to join terms that don't express the same concept. This will generally retrieve far too many irrelevant results:

• Less effective: migration OR birds
• More effective: migration OR movement

Wildcard/Truncation

You can broaden a search by using truncation to find different forms of a search term.

For example:

• Parasit* will find parasites, parasitism, parasitic, etc.
• Behav* will find behavior, behaviour, behavioral, etc.

Beware: truncation can have unintended consequences. Gene* will find genetic, genes, etc., but will also find general.

The BIOSIS quick guide contains additional information about searching in BIOSIS.

Searching for Literature Reviews in BIOSIS

Find literature reviews in BIOSIS by doing a search on your topic, then narrowing the results to just literature reviews using the "Refine Results" sidebar

1. Conduct your search
2. Under "Refine Results on the left side, scroll down until you see "Literature Type"
3. Click on the triangle next to "Literature Types" to see your options
4. Select the "Literature Review" checkbox, then click "Refine"
5. If you don't see the "Literature Review" option, try clicking "more options/values"

If there are no literature reviews in your original search results, you won't see a "Literature Review" option under Literature Types. You may want to broaden your search, then try limiting to literature reviews again.

Learn more about literature reviews

Searching for Authors in BIOSIS

Author searching in BIOSIS is complicated by the fact that many authors publish using different forms of their name (e.g., R D Jones, Robert D Jones, Robert Jones, etc.). Since BIOSIS doesn't standardize these different forms, it can be difficult to find articles by a particular author.

Fortunately, the author index makes this task a little easier. Here's how to use the author index:

1. Click the magnifying glass icon to the right of the Author search box (see below)

2. Type in the author's last name and first initial in the search box. Click the "Move to" button to go to that name in the alphabetical list of authors.

Example: To find articles by Brent D. Mishler, type Mishler B:

3. From the list, select the name forms that correspond to the author in question. Click the "Add" button next to each one.

4. When you have selected all the different forms of the author's name, click "OK" at the bottom of the screen.

5. The name forms will be entered into the search screen. Click "Search" to complete the search.