Field Searching: Focus on EBSCOhost

Transcription

1 Field Searching: Focus on EBSCOhost Introduction: Recds from bibliographic databases share certain features: Each recd in bibliographic databases describes a publication. o A jounal article, book, book chapter, meeting abstract, etc. Recds are subdivided into fields. Fields describe one aspect of the publication. o Auth, Title, Publication Name, Language, etc. Each field is assigned a unique field label. In addition, fields may be wd-indexed, phrase-indexed, numeric. When a field is wd-indexed each individual wd is searchable. When a field is phrase-indexed the entire field may be indexed as a single block of text including all punctuation and spacing, a field may contain several phrases each of which is searchable. Leaving out a punctuation character can be disastrous as the following search of the publication type (PT) field demonstrates. Can you find the problem? Set Search Recds S2 PT CLINICAL TRIAL PHASE I 0 S1 PT CLINICAL TRIAL, PHASE I 8474 When a field is numeric (e.g. a publication year) then some numeric operation are permited (greater than, less than, equal, numeric ranges). A field may be both wd-indexed and phrase-indexed. Related Issues Stop Wds - Commonly used wds such as articles, pronouns and prepositions. Stop wds are not indexed f searching a database. EBSCOhost ignes stop wds (such as the, f, of and after), finding any single wd in its place. F example, if you entered company of America, EBSCOhost would find company of America, company in America, company f America. It would not find company of the America, because the search engine retains a wd distance. Punctuation - If you enter phrases with punctuation, EBSCOhost searches f the term both with and without the punctuation. F example, if you enter television: talk show, EBSCOhost finds results with television talk-show, television talk show, and if synonyms have been activated, TV talk show. If you enter hyphenated wds in a search, EBSCOhost automatically searches f the wd in both hyphenated and non-hyphenated fms. F example, entering coca-cola will find both Coca Cola and Coca-Cola.

2 EBSCOhost: Searchable Fields and Their Field Tags in MEDLINE. In EBSCOhost you may limit a search term simply by selecting the appropriate field in the Select a Field drop-down listing: This will limit all the search terms in the Find box to that field. The searcher may also use the two letter field tag befe a term to specify a field restriction. Using this approach, several fields can be specified quickly in one Find box. Specifying fields rather than using the Limits feature (eg LA English versus setting the English limiter) can be faster if the searcher has to turn the limit function off and on depending on the nature of the search. Fields in EBSCOhost MEDLINE: Tag Description AA Abstract Available Limits a search to citations that have an abstract; over 70% of the citations include abstracts. AB Abstract Searches f wds in the abstract. AF Auth Address Institution of affiliation address of the first auth. AG Age Related Searches the age categy check tag and the "All" age groupings. Note: The value "Aged 80 and over" will not also contain the term "Aged" (65+) They must be searched separately. However the limiter f "Aged: 65+ years" will also search "Aged 80 and over" and the MeSH Example AA Y AB hospice AF Harvard Medical AG Aged, 80 and over

3 heading "Frail Elderly", similar to the limiter in PubMed. AN PMID - PubMed Unique Identifier AR Auth Phrase Searches f the exact auth name. AU Auth Searches personal auth name in the fmat last name followed by one me initials. First names and uncrected auth names are searchable if supplied. CA Cpate Auth Searches the name of the cpate auth if the document was not authed by individuals. CD Date Completed Searches the final processing date of a citation in YYYYMMDD YYMMDD fmat. CM Comments Searches f infmation provided in the Comments field. CT Check Tag Searches headings that specify particular aspects such as gender and animal. Values consist of the following: Animals, Humans, Male, Female CW Wd in Maj Subject Heading. CY Country of Publication (country in which the journal was published) DH MeSH_Headings (maj min) DM Maj MeSH Heading DT Date of Publication Searches the publication date of the citation in YYYYMMDD YYMMDD fmat. See also the 'PD' tag. EM Date Created Searches the date of entry of a citation into the database in in YYYYMMDD YYMMDD fmat. GI Grant Infmation Searches f grant contract numbers, grant abbreviation institute AN AR Caraglia M AU Moe AU Moe RJ CA Child Health CD CD CM cancer CT Female CW life CY France DH hypnosis DM Directed Tissue Donation DT DT EM EM GI NIH

4 IP IS acronym. Issue/Part/Supplement Searches the Issue/Part/Supplement of a serial publication. ISSN IP 5 IS IS JC Journal Code JN Journal Name Searches the abbreviation full name f a journal. Enclose your terms in quotation marks when searching strings that contain stopwds two letter search tags. LA Language Searches the language in which the citation was published; either the 3- letter code the language can be searched. LR Latest Revision Date Searches the date a change was made to a recd in YYYYMMDD YYYYMM fmat. MW Wd in Subject Heading (maj min) MH Exact Subject Heading (maj min) MJ Wd in Maj Subject Heading MM Exact Maj Subject Heading MS Molecular Sequence Searches the ganizational acronym and/ unique identifiers of molecular sequences. NP PD PG JC JN Harvard Health Letter JN Harv Health Lett LA Fre LA French LR LR MW Virus MH Osteoposis MJ breast neoplasms/geneti cs MM Bone Density MS "GENBANK AF056978" Named Person NP Curie Searches personal names f an individual who is the subject of an article in the fmat last name followed by one me initials. First names are searchable if supplied (2002+ only). Publication Date (Text) Searches the publication date (year, month season, day) of the citation in text fmat, i.e. See also the 'DT' tag. Pagination PD 2000 Mar PD 2000 Jul 31 PD 2000 Fall PG 29

5 Searches first, last, page range of an article. See also the 'ST' tag. PG PM PMID - PubMed Unique Identifier. PT Publication Type RN CAS Registry Number RV Review Articles RW Registry Number Wd SB Subset Searches a specific subset. Some of the subsets available are: Q Bioethics AIM Ce Clinical (AIM) D Dentistry H Health Administration Q Histy of Medicine IM MEDLINE N Nursing SO Source Searches the abbreviation full name f a journal. Enclose your terms in quotation marks when searching strings that contain stopwds two letter search tags. SS ST SU TA TI TT PM PT letter RN RV Review RW proteins SB D SO Preventive Cardiology Subject Subset SS AIDS Searches the Special Queries Subject Subsets as described by the NLM at This data is a search limiter only and is not displayed data. Start Page ST 29 Subject SU fringe benefits Searches wds in the MeSH terms field, Keywds and Non-Mesh Headings from Contributed Indexing f Non-mesh display Journal Title Abbreviation Searches the exact journal title abbreviation. Enclose your terms in quotation marks when searching strings that contain stopwds two letter search tags. Title Transliterated Title TA N Engl J Med TI impairment TT cardiaque

6 Searches wds in the iginal feign-language title of an article. TX All Text TX lucid dreaming Perfms a keywd search of all the database's searchable fields. Using the TX field code will cause the search to look f the keywd in the full text as well as the citation recd. VI Volume Searches the volume number of a publication. VI 56 YR Year YR 2001 Searches the year of publication in YYYY fmat.