Advanced Searching

in Omnifile

Start at the library homepage:http://www.scu.edu/library/

Click on O in the Alphabetical List of Databases

Click on O in the Alphabetical List of Databases

The 2nd database listed is Omnifile.

Click on it.

You are now looking at the Advanced Search screen.

Let’s look a little closer at the search boxes.

Let’s look a little closer at the search boxes.

Let’s imagine we wanted to look for articles that might help us answer this question:

“Does all the violence in some video games make children more violent?”

The first thing we need to do is decide what

the most important

KEYWORDS in that question are.

The first thing we need to do is decide what

the most important

KEYWORDS in that question are.

It is important to just use the most

concrete, unambiguous words when searching library databases.

It is important to just use the most

concrete, unambiguous words when searching library databases.

Our question again:

“Does all the violence in some video games make children more violent?”

“Does all the violence in some video games make children more violent?”

“Does all the violence in some video games make children more violent?”

“Does all the violence in some video games make children more violent?”

Let’s put children in one box

and violence in another.

In the third, put “video games”.

Notice the quotes around the phrase “video games”.

You need to put quotes around phrases in most databases.

And now we are ready to click

You are now looking at the search results.

There’s a lot to notice! Let me point out a few very important things .

. .

Notice how many articles were retrieved.

Notice how many articles were retrieved.

Notice the links to the Full Text.

Notice the links to the Full Text.

You won’t ALWAYS see this, but more on that later…

Often you have your choice of HTML or PDF.

HTMLHTML

PDFPDF

HTML is a webpage version of the original printed article.

HTMLHTML

PDF is a photograph of the original printed article, with all the graphics, layout, etc.

PDFPDF

The PDF is usually the better choice for research papers. For one thing, it has page numbers!

PDFPDF

All of these 163 Results are ARTICLES in periodicals.

However, not all are from SCHOLARLY or PEER-REVIEWED journals.

There’s an easy way to find out which are most likely to be from scholarly journals.

Click on this box in the Refine your results panel.

Click on this box in the Refine your results panel.

✔

A little box will pop up.

Click the Update button.

That sure made a BIG difference!

35 instead of 163!

There are a couple other things it is important to notice here.

They have to do with LANGUAGE.

You need to think of library databases as having their own languages.

These languages appear as SUBJECTS here.

Look closely at these 1st two records. Notice that all 3 of our search terms appear

as SUBJECTS here.

children, violence & video games are all among the SUBJECTS in the 1st article here.

In the 2nd article, though, only violence is among the SUBJECTS.

However, the other two IDEAS

are there in the SUBJECTS.

They are expressed by different terms, though.

children is expressed by the phrase

child development

And video games is expressed by the phrase

computer games

Sounds rather nitpicky, doesn’t it?

Hard to believe those details are that important, isn’t it?

But, you have to remember –

You are not searching GOOGLE!

This nitpicky stuff often makes a

huge difference in these databases.

So, the next step is to make some changes in our original search based on what we just learned!

Remember this search?

We used one box for each of our 3 ideas.

And, each idea was expressed by a single word or phrase.

We just learned that there is more than a single way to express two of those

ideas.

children can be expressed by the phrase “child development”.

”video games” can be expressed by the phrase “computer games”.

Don’t be scared

but, this is going to get a little technical now . . .

Maybe you noticed that these boxes are connected by the Boolean AND.

Maybe you noticed that these boxes are connected by the Boolean AND.

YES! We are speaking Boolean here. This is a Boolean search statement you are looking

at.

And, we are about to make it a more complex Boolean search statement.

We are are going to use the Boolean OR in two of our search boxes.

This is how we can use the two subject phrases we discovered –

“computer games”& “child development”

This is how we can use the two subject phrases we discovered –

“computer games”& “child development”

Notice that the search box expanded so we could type “or computer games”

There is actually a little shorthand device that would be useful here.

Because the root child is part of both of the search terms in that one box, we can do this:

Using the * at the end of a string of

characters like child* tells the computer program to retrieve all forms of that word,

includingchild child’s children childhood

and, of course, any phrases including any of those words. It’s like you said this:

child or child’s or children or childhood

Cool, eh?

So, if we make that final change to our search . . .

We end up with 46 results

Not a HUGE difference, but those additional ones could be the best!

Notice that the computer retained our limit to Scholarly (Peer Retrieved)

There’s one more thing you need to know about . . .

Let’s scroll down to view more Results

The first 7 items all have links to the fulltext of the articles.

However, when we get to item 8 . . .

There is no link to either HTML or PDF fulltext.

That doesn’t mean, however, that this article is not available to you.

In fact, the fulltext is available in two quick clicks.

The key is this link

Click on Find It @ SCU Libraries

Another tab will open in your browser. . .

In the best possible case, this is what you will see there.

These are instructions for getting that article.

There are many options for this particular article.

The best is that first one…

You can go directly to fulltext of that Article . . .

by clicking on EBSCOHost

You won’t always see that option . . .

Sometimes you will only get a link to the

Journal

That link will take you to a list of the issues of the Journal and you will still have to search for that specific article.

If we do not have access to the journal in a database, but only in its PRINT form, then this option will be at the top.

If we do not have a subscription to this journal at all, you will get this option.

If you click on that, you will be asked to log in using your ACCESS card barcode, and you can request a copy of the article be sent to you by email.

That’s probably enough for now . . .

Go and search ONMIFILE!