Literature Searching

Lucia Ravi

Librarian

Medical and Dental Library

• Construct effective search strategies for your topic

• Find and get access to databases and resources

relevant to the subject area

• Be familiar with Find It @ UWA

• Be familiar with Get It

• Introduction to EndNote

Session Outcomes

1. Decide on key concepts of your topic

2. Choose keywords / synonyms

3. Construct a search statement using 'Boolean'

operators and other search techniques

4. Select and search relevant databases for

journal articles

5. Analyse results

6. Modify search statements if required

The Literature Search Process

Discuss the impact of

immigration on the

Australian welfare system.

Identify Concepts

Discuss the impact of

immigration on the

Australian welfare system.

Identify Concepts

Identify Keywords

immigration Australian welfare

Identify Keywords

immigration

• migration

• immigrate

• emigrate

Australian

• Australians

• Australia

welfare

• social security

• benefit

Boolean Logic

AND retrieves all the articles with

both ‘Diabetes’ and ‘Indigenous’

OR retrieves all the articles containing either

‘Aboriginal’ or ‘Indigenous’ or both

NOT retrieves all the articles containing

‘Indigenous’ but not those about

‘Canada’

Austral* = Australia, Australian, Australians,

Australasian

cultur* = culture, cultural, cultured,

culturally

wom?n = woman, women

“social work” = searches for the phrase

social work = searches for social AND work

Truncation, Wildcards and Phrase

marks

Create a Search String Strategy

immigration

• migration

• immigrate

• emigrate

Australian

• Australians

• Australia

welfare

• social security

• benefit

“State your research topic – area of interest”

Work out your search strategy

1. Identify search concepts

2. Identify keywords

3. Turn keywords into a ‘search string’

Beginning your search in UWA OneSearch

I found too much...

• Add another concept

• Use limits (language, date, publication type, etc)

I didn’t find enough...

• Add more synonyms for a concept

• Remove a concept

• Truncate keywords

• Remove limits

Your search results

Start at the Library Website: www.library.uwa.edu.au

Subject guides

• Social Work and Social Policy Guide

• Databases on front page of guide

• Referencing and EndNote guides also on subject guides page

Also through ‘Find Databases’ page

• Available when you Sign In to OneSearch

Finding resources for social work

Searching resources - databases

In your groups or pairs , choose one of these databases:

• AustHealth – Informit Databases

• APA-FT (Australian Public Affairs)

• FAMILY (Australian Family and Society Abstracts)

• MAIS (Multicultural Australia and Immigration Studies)

Using your search strategy from the previous exercise, evaluate:

• Relevance – to your research topic, review abstract

• Reliability – author, publisher credentials, purpose

• Bias – opinion piece or objective research

Adapt/conduct your search. Be prepared to report!

Quality: Evaluate!

Unsure how to evaluate sources? Refer to:

Finding Quality Information

Library website>Subject Guides>Information Skills (in the

navigation pane on the left)>Quality Information

• Look for the Find It button to see if

the Library holds an article online (full text ) or

in print

• Sometimes we may have the article in print –

check OneSearch

• Request articles through Get It

Finding full-text articles

Searching resources – Grey literature

"That which is produced on all levels of government,

academics, business and industry in print and

electronic formats, but which is not controlled by

commercial publishers."Quoted from: 4th International Conference on Grey Literature (GL ’99)

• If we don’t have online or

print holdings

• Login with student ID

and card barcode (not

your Pheme password)

Get It – for what we don’t have

• Citation software to help with the mechanics of

referencing

• Using EndNote does not guarantee that you have

correctly referenced your work – you still need to give

EndNote the correct details and where they go in

your work.

• Classes are listed on the EndNote Guide

Construct effective search strategies for your topic

Find and get access to databases and resources

relevant to the subject area

Be familiar with Find It @ UWA

Be familiar with Get It

Introduction to EndNote

Session Outcomes

You can also brush up your information skills by looking at

Communication and Research Skills (CaRS)

http://www.student.uwa.edu.au/learning/resources/cars

Any questions?

For Further Assistance

medref-lib@uwa.edu.au

(08) 9346 7570(08) 9346 7570 Please book an appointment for longer queries.

Please book an appointment for longer queries.

Karen Jones

For further assistance…