You are searching for information about improving the air quality in Amsterdam. Your first search in a database has produced 15 results, all of which are relevant.
Improving your search results
How can you ensure that you find as much relevant information as possible, while excluding as much non-usable information as possible at the same time?
When you search in a database, it is not always clear which search terms will get you the best results. A thesaurus can be useful in this case. In module 2, you learned that a thesaurus can help you think up search terms. In a number of databases you can also conduct a search using the thesaurus. Such a very targeted search will often give you good search results.
When you have found an article which deals with your subject, you can use it for finding other publications on the same subject. In the basic course, you learned that you can find older literature with the help of the bibliographies in articles that you found. If you would like to find more recent articles, then you can use the “cited by” function.
Let’s say that you are searching for information on the link between mortality rates and air pollution caused by traffic in Amsterdam. Looking in the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Library, you find the following article:
The article is highly relevant to your subject, but it is not very recent.
If you now click “cited by”, you will see an overview of the sources that have quoted this article. There is a good chance that this overview will contain articles on the same subject. The articles you find this way will always be more recent than the article from which the citation is taken.
In addition, the number of citations tells you something about the article itself. If the article has been cited a lot, it is probably of major significance.
By clicking “citations”, you will see an overview of older articles to which the article makes reference.
Tip: Google Scholar also offers both options.
Searching for citations in Science Direct
Some databases also have a citation index. In Science Direct, for example, there is the Citing Articles option to the right of each article.
Who has cited whom, and what has been cited, can be found in the Web of Science database. This is where you can find references to scientific articles, among other things. If an article is also available in one of our databases, you can retrieve the full text straight away.
Summary
You have learned to:
make your results more specific
search by using a thesaurus
search by using a citation index
Search Logbook
Now note down in your logbook what you have found and how.
Het arrangement 4 - Search for information is gemaakt met
Wikiwijs van
Kennisnet. Wikiwijs is hét onderwijsplatform waar je leermiddelen zoekt,
maakt en deelt.
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