Smarter searches

What?
This overview shows clever tips for commonly used databases at the Faculty of Science.

Why?
Part of the so-called Academic skills is finding scientific literature. The picture on the second page
clearly shows why Google-searching is not sufficient; you simply cannot reach the scientific
information available in scientific databases (sperm whales in the picture)! Information specialists at
the library, pictured as divers, help you find literature that is suited for your thesis, essay or
internship.

General search tips

In most databases, Boolean operators can be used:

Examples:
alcohol AND abuse  Hits containing both alcohol and
abuse
alcohol OR abuse  Hits containing alcohol or abuse or both
alcohol NOT abuse  Hits with alcohol only
NOT is sometimes replaced by minus (no space!): alcohol -abuse

This button checks if the library has a subsription on that journal. If yes,
you’ll be able to download the full text. If not, you might order the article
at another university.

Not a RU-student?
You are welcome to visit the Library of Science. You can request a guest login (bring your ID) to search
the databases and journals we have subscriptions for. Our information specialists are happy to help
you.

More information
 E-learningmodules Faculty of Science: www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 Workshops: www.ru.nl/library/workshops
 Walk-in hours: Tuesday 12am-2pm, Thursday 3pm-5pm.
 Individual help: visit us or make an appointment.

Information specialists Ruud, René & Marieke

Library of Science | HG00.013 | 024-3652225 | [email protected] | www.ru.nl/ubn/fnwi
 Start your search at
www.ru.nl/library/fnwi
 All disciplines
www.webofscience.com

Refers to:
Articles (digital & printed)

Tips & Tricks

- English only
- Articles starting from 1945
- TIP: citation search! Discover by whom the article is cited with just one click  quickly retrieve more
recent literature on the same subject.

Operators
AND, OR & NOT

alcohol NEAR/x abuse  both terms are maximum x words apart from each other. This way “The
abuse of alcohol…” is included as well, but irrelevant hits, i.e. about general abuse where the word
alcohol is mentioned somewhere, are avoided.

Wildcards
* (asterisk): 0 or more characters.
Example: synthe*  gives synthesis, syntheses, synthesize, synthesise, synthetic etc.

? (question mark): 1 character

Example: organi?ation  gives organisation and organization

$ (dollar sign): 0 or 1 character

Example: colo$r  gives color and colour

Remark: minimum of 3 characters necessary! Not se* but sea*.

Quotation marks
“blood stain pattern”  searches for these exact words, in this exact order

More information
Short instruction videos on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 All disciplines
www.scholar.google.nl

Refers to:
Articles (digital) | Websites | (parts of) Books
Tips & Tricks
- Not all hits are scientific! Always check this yourself
- What is possible in Google Scholar is not always possible in Google and vice versa
- Use Advanced search: triangle to the right of the search bar
- Be aware: no spaces between search terms and commands, no capitals in commands
- To import in Endnote or BibTex: go to Settings – Search results – Bibliography manager
Boolean operators
AND and OR, no NOT
Instead of OR, the ‘pipe’ | (straight line) could be used, without spaces: virus|viruses
Exclusion
Minus before search term
Example: jaguar speed -auto  gives hits about the speed of the animal, not the car

Other operators
- Searches based on file extension
Example: Einstein ext:pdf  retrieves PDFs on Einstein
Also possible with ext:doc & ext:xls (Word & Excel)

- Domain or site search

Example: black holes site:www.nasa.nl
Example 2: policy document site:.gov

- Author search
Example: author:”F. Rutjes”

Quotation marks
“blood stain pattern”  searches for these exact words, in this exact order

Unclickable [REFERENCE] or [CITATION]

Citation from another article, which Google scholar cannot find online
Reason: not all publishers allow Google scholar to show their full text articles
Solution: find the article in Web of Science, PubMed or another relevant database

More information
Interactive module at www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 All disciplines
www.ru.on.worldcat.org

Refers to:
Books | Journals (digital & printed) |Collection RU | Collection libraries worldwide

Tips & Tricks

- Request books from other universities
- Make book reservations

Boolean operators
AND, OR and NOT
Note: brackets not possible!
Example: proof AND phythagorean
Example not possible: ((proof OR theorem) AND phythagorean)

Other operators
- Title search
Example: ti:enigma (or ti:”artificial intelligence” if you know the exact title)

- Author search
Example: au:Flik

Be aware: no spaces!

Wildcards
* (asterisk): 0 or more characters
Example: synthe*  gives synthesis, syntheses, synthesize, synthesise, synthetic etc.

# (hashtag): 1 character
Example: organi#ation  organisation and organization

? (questionmark): 0 to 9 characters
Example: colo?r  gives color and colour

Quotation marks:
“blood stain pattern”  searches for these exact words, in this exact order

More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 Medicine | Biology | MLS
www.pubmed.org

Refers to:
Articles (digital & printed)

Tips & Tricks

- TIP: Thesaurus: hierarchically structured subjects (MeSH-tree, see below)
- Mostly English
- Since 1950
- Combine [MeSH] and [tiab] search queries to find all relevant literature
Boolean operators
AND, OR and NOT
Example: (kidney OR renal) NOT transplant  gives hits about kidneys, not about kidney transplants

Other operators
PubMed automatically searches in field [all fields]. Be aware how this can influence search results, for
example searching headache will also give you hits where headache is a side-effect of medicine and
not the main subject. To circumvent this, only search title and abstract with the code [tiab] to get
relevant hits. Don’t use spaces between keywords and field.
Example: headache[tiab] AND diet[tiab]

Wildcards
* (asterisk): 0 or more characters
Example: surg*  gives surgery, surgeries, surgeon etc.

Quotation marks:
“kidney disease”  searches for these exact words, in this exact order

MeSH
MeSH stands for Medical Subject Heading and is unique to Pubmed. MeSH terms are keywords that
are assigned to scientific articles. Almost all articles added to Pubmed get MeSH terms. Be aware:
This means that you will not find all articles related to your subject by only searching MeSH terms!
Use the [MeSH term] field together with the [tiab] field to find all relevant articles.

Pubmed has structured MeSH terms hierarchically by creating the MeSH tree. From this MeSH tree,
only one MeSH term is assigned to a scientific article always being as specific as possible. Select MeSH
next to the search bar and search with a common keyword. Click your results and at the bottom you
will find the hierarchical structure.
More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
Short YouTube tutorial on MeSH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HMvR6kLBDY
 Chemistry | MLS
www.reaxys.com

Refers to:
Articles (digital)

Tips & Tricks

Search for:
 Molecular structure
 Complete reactions
 Generic structures
 Physical properties
Also possible:
 Browse name reactions
 Create synthesis plan (automatically)
 Export hits to Endnote/Mendeley

How does it work?

- Draw a structure or reaction with the structure editor
- Reaxys shows structures/reactions found in articles.
- Click Full Text to visit the publisher’s website and download the full text of the article (if available)
- Be aware: experimentals can sometimes be found in the Supporting Information, a document which
can be downloaded from the publisher’s website as well.

Wildcards
* (asterisk): 0 or more caracters
Example: heli*  gives helix, helices, helical etc.

Combine
Combine a structure with a search term. Click Add/Remove fields (below your structure on the right)

Type in ‘Citation Basic Index’, click on it and Add.

You will see a new search field. You will search fulltext in this field. You can for instance combine a
structure with the search term polymer* to find a specific polymer (structure search for polymers is
difficult; polymers are hardly ever drawn in literature!).

More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 Astronomy | Astrophysics | Physics | Geophysics
http://adswww.harvard.edu/
(Astrophysics Data System)

Refers to:
Journals | Articles |Data | Symposia | Proceedings | Internal NASA reports | Preprints
Tips & Tricks
- TIP: Citation search! Click once and see who cited the article  quickly find more recent literature
on the same subject. How? Click C at an article.
- Searches for synonyms and authors automatically (also when misspelled)
- Search for author: case –sensitive!
- All-capital letters are interpreted as an abbreviation (i.e. FUSE)

Boolean operators
AND, OR & NOT
Other operators
- Title search
Example: intitle:yellow symbiotic (or ti:”yellow symbiotic” if you know the exact title)

- Switch of the automatic search for synonyms:

Example: =accelerate  does NOT give acceleration, accelerating etc.

- Exclusion or inclusion
Example: +contact +binaries –eclipsing  hits containing contact and binaries, but no eclipsing

- Search for Object name or Position

Example: searches for position in the universe in 3 databases: SIMBAD, NED and ADS. Click Object
Name to find a list or aliases, i.e. M31
Wildcards
* (asterisk): replaces 0 or more characters
Example: gala*  galaxy, galactic, galactical etc.
Also possible at the beginning. Example: *sorb  adsorb, absorb

? (question mark): replaces 1 caracter

Example: organi?ation  organisation and organization
Quotation marks
“galactic rotation” or ‘galactic rotation’  searches for these exact words, in this exact order.

More information
Additional search tips can be found at:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/help_pages/help.search_main.html
 Computing science | Information Sciences
http://dl.acm.org/

Refers to:
Journal articles |(e-)books | Video | Audio | Conference proceedings (from 1954 and up)

Tips & Tricks

Some classic books on computing science, chosen by ACM-members as their favorites, are fulltext
available.

Boolean operators
OR relation is standard
Example: Jacobs privacy  hits with one or both terms present

AND relation: use +

Example: +big +data  hits with both terms

Exclusion (NOT): use -

Example: +JAVA -Indonesia  hits with only JAVA, not Indonesia

Wildcards
* (asterisk): replaces 0 or more characters
Example: electro*  electron, electronics, etc…

Quotation Marks
“internet of things “  searches for these exact words, in this exact order.

More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 Computing science | Information sciences
http://ieeexplore.org

Refers to:
Journal articles | (e-)Books |Conference proceedings (starting from 1988)

Tips & Tricks

- While searching, Stemming is used: search for run and it automatically searches for running as well.
Prevent this using quotation marks: “run”
- Automatic search in British and American: localization & localisation

Boolean operators
AND, OR & NOT

Andere operators
NEAR  dynamic NEAR/2 language
retrieves hits with the word dynamic within 2 words of language. This way, for instance dynamic
programming language is found as well. Language can be placed both before or after dynamic.

ONEAR  dynamic ONEAR/2 language

Idem, however dynamic has to stand in front of language.

Wildcards
* (asterisk): 0 or more caracters
Example: data*  data, datamining, database, datapath etc…

More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite
 Mathematics
http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/

Refers to:
Books | Journals | | Articles | Proceedings

Tips & Tricks

- TIP: browse through subjects (‘thesaurus’) via Free tools > Search MSC (or click on the MSC-code of
an article of your interest)
- Import references in BibTex and Endnote
- TIP: found an interesting article? Search the author via Author ID  list of his publications (probably
published more on the same subject!
- Formulas not showing correctly? Go to Preferences and choose Yes at MathJax.

Boolean operators
AND, OR en NOT

Other operators
* (asterisk): replaces 0 or more characters
Example: surg*  gives surgery, surgeries, surgeon etc.

ADJ2: 0 or 1 words between the two search terms

Example: module adj2 differential  also retrieves hits like module about differential

! (exclamation mark): prevents automatic search for plural

Example: matrix!  retrieves only matrix, not matrices

Quotation Marks
“prisoners dilemma”  searches for these exact words, in this exact order.

More information
Practical guide on www.ru.nl/library/fnwi-elite