Gen/Basic Chem Lab

Evaluating library database results require patience and a thorough eye. The answer to your query may not appear on the first page of results. It may not appear on the first five pages of results! Read the abstracts displayed under the titles to get a general idea of what the articles are covering. You will most likely need to adjust your search to be more specific.

Remember, we asked the databases to retrieve peer reviewed articles published within the last 10 years that mention Heart Attacks. After filtering to request only peer reviewed articles published within the last 10 years, our results bring back 112,000 hits! You need to define your search by adding additional terms to be more specific. We've identified "obesity" as another keyword that we could use to bring us back more relevant results, so we need to add the term to our query. We add terms to our search using Boolean Operators through the advanced search function. Start by clicking Advanced Search in the upper left hand corner:

Then enter "Obesity" as a second term:

Don't click search just yet! Notice that some of the settings have reverted. Scroll down and make sure to click on "Only return Peer Reviewed articles" and change the publication date request to the last 10 years!

Also note the databases that you are searching on the right hand side. 

You may want to add additional databases for the search engine to check! Especially if you are looking for information in the sciences or social work fields. Make sure to add them to your search depending on your research needs.

Notice how you have the option to add terms using Operators? 

You have the ability to narrow, broaden, or exclude results from your search by using the terms AND, OR, NOT. 

Connecting two terms using AND will narrow your search, retrieving information that will only include both terms provided. Using the operator OR will expand your search giving you more results by looking for information that contains either of the terms. The operator NOT is used to exclude terms from your search by retrieving information that has one concept or term, but not the other. For a video explanation about operators see the video below.