5. Types of citations
First, you need to determine what the item is, ie. a book or a journal article.
Usually you look for what is in italics. Book citations have publisher and place
of publication. Journal articles usually have a volume and issue number.
Book
Journal Article
5
6. Library search options
Search – use keywords to search all collections
Catalogue – to find books and reserve materials
Journals – specific journal title searching
Databases – subject based journal searching
Google Scholar – change your preferences on your home computer
to identify and have access to La Trobe titles. Instructions are
available via the Google scholar tab.
6
7. What if we don’t have the book I want?
•
Request the item from another La Trobe Campus
•
Look for
•
Document delivery – articles not available online or books not available from La
Trobe campus libraries or
7
8. Types of Databases….
Citation databases:
entries have the citation, subject headings and often an abstract, sometimes they link to
full text .Examples: Cinahl, Embase, Medline
Full Text databases:
entries have the citation and abstract and in most cases the full text of an article
available for output. Examples: Expanded Academic, Meditext, Proquest
Pre-appraised evidence databases:
Clinical Evidence - summarises the current state of knowledge and uncertainty about
the prevention and treatment of clinical conditions, based on thorough searches and
appraisal of the literature.
The Cochrane Library is a multi-database resource which varies in output e.g. the
Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews contains complete systematic reviews
Peer-reviewed:
Scopus - Scopus is the world's largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed
literature.
PubMed – PubMed has access to over 22 million references, including MEDLINE databases
8
9. Formulating a question
Before you begin your search, you will need to understand what you are looking
for.
Compile a list of Keywords for the concepts, including as many synonyms as
necessary.
The concept map helps with articulating your research question and with
maintaining the logic of the search (where to use AND, where to use OR - the
Boolean linking terms for your keywords). Use truncation, * to search for
variables of a word, prevent* will return prevent, preventative and prevention.
Or quotation marks for a “term search”.
Diabetes
Exercise
Prevention
Diabet*
Exercise
Prediabetes
Prevent*
“Aerobic Exercise”
“Exercise Therapy”
9
10. What is a database?
http://youtu.be/KKIbnNLCh8g
From the La Trobe Library
web page
select Databases tab,
scroll to Health Sciences
Select Exercise Physiology
10
11. PubMed - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
PubMed comprises over 22 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, in-process
citations and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry,
veterinary medicine, the health care system, and preclinical sciences. PubMed also provides access to additional
relevant websites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources.
PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information
(NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
PubMed indexes articles using controlled vocabulary called Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). This enables all
articles about a certain subject to be retrieved, even if different terms for the concept are used in the article, such
as myocardial infarction or heart attack.
The PubMed search engine uses "automatic term mapping" to map your search to the appropriate MeSH term. You
can display the MeSH terms for a citation in Abstract View as shown below
11
12. Scopus
Scopus is a comprehensive scientific, medical, technical and social science
database containing all relevant literature. Scopus covers subject areas:
chemistry, physics, mathematics and engineering, life and health sciences,
social science, psychology and economics, biological, agricultural and
environmental sciences, and general sciences.
12