Download Assignment on Setting up a Search Strategy

Assignment on Setting up a Search Strategy
Assignment 2
2.1
The bibliographic databases (or article indexes)
Select minimal 3 bibliographic databases for your subject by using the portals at the
Wageningen Digital Library. Mention which bibliographic databases you will search
and why you did choose those instead of all the other available bibliographic
databases. Also indicate for the databases what time period your will use (what range
of years) and for what reason?
Example
For my search question I selected the following bibliographical databases:
1. Biological Abstracts, 2000- 2004/10. This database is nominated with four stars in
the portal topic plant physiology and with five stars in the portal topic plant
genetics. Biological Abstracts is the leading bibliography in the field of biology
and life sciences.
2. CAB Abstracts, 2000- 2004/10. This database is recommended in the portal topic
environmental management (3 stars) and also as general database with 5 stars for
plant sciences. CAB Abstracts covers the fields of agriculture, forestry, human
nutrition, zoology, animal husbandry and management and conservation of natural
resources.
3. AGRIS, 1999 – 2004/09. The database also covers agricultural research
particularly concerning technology. It is recommended with these facts in from
the Information button on WebSpirs. I wanted to have some practical applications
of the area in agriculture and the environment.
I wanted the latest research and knowledge and so I choose the time period from
approximately 4 years ago, up to the present.
I did not choose other databases in the portal topic environmental management
because those databases focus on economic or social aspects, or are in German.
2.2
Do your search in the bibliographic databases. Start with one database. Combine the
keywords for each aspect with OR, and combine the aspects with AND, as you have
learned in the modules.
Mention what search strategy or search profile you did use. So all the keywords
arranged according to aspects of your subject, in a maximum of five lines. This search
profile has to show e.g. whether or not you did use a thesaurus, the command explode,
truncating and masking and the Boolean or other operators.
Adjust your search profile so you will finally retrieve a number of records between 25
to 100 per database. The best way to adjust the profile is to add keywords you found in
records or thesaurus of which did not think on forehand, and to broaden or refining the
results by using broader or finer terms.
In general you can use the same search profile for the different databases. However,
sometimes you need to adjust the profile because of specific features of the database.
Important is to show what words you used and how you combined them (see
example).
Example
Search profile for CAB Abstracts and Biological Abstracts
(heavy metal? OR cadmium OR lead OR copper OR iron OR cobalt OR manganese OR
nickel OR zinc OR chromium OR Pb OR Fe OR Ni OR Co OR Cu OR Mn OR Zn OR
Cd OR Cr) AND (uptake OR stress OR tolerance OR detoxification) AND (gene? Or
genetic* or genotypic or transgenic*) AND (phytoremediation OR remediation OR
rehabilitation OR bioremediation) AND plant* AND (English in LA)
I added the aspect plant* because I otherwise retrieved records dealing with other organisms. I
found the terms rehabilitation and bioremediation as thesaurus terms in CAB-Abstracts
In AGRIS I found only a few records with this search profile. It was too specific. So I
broadened the search to:
Explode heavy metals AND (phytoremediation OR remediation OR rehabilitation OR
bioremediation) AND plant* AND (English in LA)
In AGRIS I could explode the term heavy metals via the thesaurus. This was not possible in
CAB or Biological Abstracts.
2.3
Give the final results (how many records) for each bibliographic database.
Example
Biological Abstracts gave 47 records, CAB Abstracts 78, AGRIS 44.