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About the OSH Database 1-2-3 Guide to Searching


Searching the OSH database is simple. All users need to do is choose a search screen, enter and submit the search terms, and view the results.

Step One

Choosing a Search Screen

The search screen is a Web page containing a set of specific search prompts. A word, phrase, or term can be typed at each prompt. Each prompt corresponds to a specific field in the database. For example, typing the last name Giovino at the Author prompt will search the database for all records that were written by those individuals with the last name of Giovino.

Users can select from two search screens, a Basic Search Screen and an Advanced Search Screen. Listed in the following table are the search prompts available at each search screen.

Basic Search Screen


Advanced Search Screen


Author Author
Corporate Author Title
Title Journal Name
Journal Name Corporate Author
Abstract Publication Information
Descriptor Publication Year
Publication Year Descriptor
Abstract
Document Type
Language
Supplier Number
Two Additional Fields for Complex Searches


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Step Two

Selecting and Submitting the Search Terms

Before beginning a search, identify the separate concepts to be searched. Then type the word, phrase, or term next to the appropriate database field search prompt, in the column labeled "search for." For example, to find records authored by Giovino, type Giovino in the Author field. Below are explanations on how to combine words in a single field, how to combine words in different fields, and how to alter the conditions that the computer uses to search.

How to Combine Words in a Field

This section explains how to use keyboard characters to combine words in a field to improve a search.

& The ampersand (&) is used in place of the word "and." When using the ampersand between terms, the computer will look for records that have both terms.

Example: To retrieve documents written by both Dr. Giovino and Dr. Eriksen, enter:

Author: giovino & eriksen

, The comma (,) is used in place of the word "or." When a comma is placed between terms, the computer will look for one or the other term.

Example: To retrieve documents with either the word "newborn" or the word "infant" in the title, enter:

Title: newborn, infant

? The question mark (?) character is a "wildcard." It is used to replace one character in a word or phrase. This is particularly helpful if the correct spelling of a word is unknown.

Example: When unsure as to whether the author's name ends with "sen" or "son." Enter:

Author: eriks?n

* The asterisk (*) is also called a wildcard, but it replaces one or more characters. This wildcard will expand a search that will give greater retrieval results.

Example: When looking for documents related to education, rather than type out all of the variations (educate, education, educational, educator, educated), enter:

Abstract: educat*

Only use this wildcard with three or more letters, i.e., do not type "an*" or "ed*."

Example: The asterisk wildcard can also be used in the middle of a word. To find all authors whose names start with A, and end with N, enter:

Author: a*n

Understanding Boolean Connectors

If searching just one field, such as author, skip this section. If searching in two or more fields, continue reading. Connectors enable the user to search more than one field at the same time. The choices are provided in pull down boxes on the right-hand side of each field in a column labeled "join." Click on and hold the arrow on the right of the box to see the other choices. The default is OR, however AND or AND NOT can be also chosen.

OR

Retrieves documents that meets one criteria OR the other.

Example:

Author: Giovino OR

Title: cancer

This search results in a list of all the documents either written by an author named "Giovino" or with the word "cancer" in the title. OR serves to expand a search.

AND

Retrieves only those records that meet both the first criteria AND the second criteria.

Example:

Title: newborn AND
Abstract: mother

This search returns those documents that contain the word "newborn" in the title and the word "mother" in abstract. AND is a method to narrow a search.

AND NOT

Retrieves documents that meet the first criteria AND NOT the next criteria.

Example:

Title: newborn AND NOT

Pub Year: 1960:1980

This search retrieves all documents that have the word "newborn" in the title, but were written before 1960 and after 1980. AND NOT serves to narrow a search. Note that the (:) colon means "from 1960 to 1980" and serves to range publication years so that not every year needs to be entered in the search.

These three tools can be used to customize a search whenever using more than one field at a time. Keep in mind, however, that the conditions OR, AND, and AND NOT only apply to the following field in the form that has been filled with specific search elements. To check on the proper syntax and use of these connectors read the search as if reading a sentence. If it makes sense, the search strategy is sound.

Using AND NOT is quite powerful and may exclude a great deal of literature so that search results are too minimal. A useful application of AND NOT is when the user is searching for citations on a broad subject but wants to exclude some particular subcategory of that subject. The user may wish to create a complex search using the spare boxes at the bottom of the advanced search screen. For example, to retrieve citations on "neoplasms AND NOT breast neoplasms," use first the Descriptor Field, click on AND NOT from the pull down screen at the end of this line, then use the pull down screens from the left side of the last spare field, select Descriptor and Contains the Phrase.

Example:

Descriptor: Neoplasms AND NOT
Descriptor: Breast Neoplasms

This strategy can also be applied to other types of searches.

Understanding Search Conditions

To the right of each field name is a pull down box, labeled "specify" that contains several types of phrases. These phrases allow the user to specify the search conditions to apply in a particular search. Text fields and date fields each have different search conditions. The following are descriptions of the possibilities.

Search Conditions for Text Fields

contains the phrase

Searches for all terms in exact order and position: the identical phrase must be there.

contains in order

Searches for all terms in that order, but other words can be between them.

contains all

Searches for terms in any order, but they all must be there.

contains any

Searches for any of the terms in any order: one or more of the chosen terms might be there, and the order is unimportant.

includes

Searches for any single word.

Search Conditions for Date Fields

equals

Searches for dates that exactly match the dates entered.

is not

Searches for dates that include everything except the dates specified.

Dates must be four character (i.e., "1982"). The system will not recognize months, days, or two character years. Using a colon retrieves a range of dates. The entry "1980:1985" commands the computer to retrieve everything from 1980 through 1985.

Submitting the Search

After typing in all the search terms, click on the icon that says "Submit Query." This icon appears at both the very top and the very bottom of each search screen.

HELPFUL HINT: If the search is complicated, and a printer is easily accessible, consider printing out the search page just completed before clicking the "Submit Query" icon so that there is a record of the search strategy.

At this point, the user may select the order in which the citations should be displayed by choosing a field from the "order by" pull down box, (i.e., display alphabetically by Author or Journal Title, or display chronologically by Supplier Number or Publication Year). Next, choose either ascending or descending from the pull-down box named "Sort Order." These pull down boxes are to the lower left of both search screens.

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Step Three

Viewing and/or Printing a Search

Once a search is submitted, a list of citations that meets the search criteria is presented. Records can be viewed and/or printed one at a time, by clicking on the name of the document, or both citations and abstracts of 20 documents at a time can be viewed and/or printed, by clicking on the "Expand" icon at the bottom of the list. The "Previous" and "Next" links move the user back and forth through the full citation and abstract of each document. The "Summary" link leads the user back to the title list of search results. 

Defining Some Search Terms:

Record

A single item in a database. In the Smoking and Health Database, records include a bibliographic citation, descriptors, abstracts, and other information about a document.

Field

A defined portion of a record; for example, the Title field contains the title of the document.

Author Field

The Smoking and Health Database contains authors by last name and first and middle initals. Users have the choice of searching by any or all of these elements. They need only be connected with an &, but no punctuation.

Abstract

Nearly all of the 56,000 records have abstracts that summarize the contents or findings, or both, of the document. For pre-1989 document citations, it is best to search for text words in this field, as well as in the descriptor field.

Audience

Since 1995, citations are coded for special audiences: General Public, Educators, Professionals, and Media.

Corporate Author

This field contains the name of the organization or agency that published the document. Search on the specific name or significant parts of the name of the university, government agency, or organization. Since organizational acronyms are not used in indexing, do not search by acronym in this field.

Descriptor

The Smoking and Health Database uses a thesaurus of accepted terms. Some pre-1989 citations do not have descriptors. While these are being updated, search for concepts either in the title or abstract fields, in addition to the descriptor field. Once the updates have been completed, these instructions will advise that this search strategy is no longer necessary.

Journal Name

The complete journal name is included. The entire journal title or parts of the title may be searched.

Publication Information

This field contains information on conference sponsors, conference site, conference dates, conference title, book title, publisher, place of publication, Public Health Service publication number, and editor(s) names. Any of these elements may be entered in the search field for searching.

Publication Year

This field contains the four-digit year of publication (i.e.,"1996"), but does not refer to month, date, or season. Note that a conference may be held one year but the proceedings may have a publication year at least one year or more later.

Supplier Number

This number is assigned by the computer to help users keep track of the records. This number indicates the two-digit year that the record was processed into the database.

Title

The main title with full subtitle is contained in the record. The best search strategy is to enter only the significant words in a title and use the pull down box for either "Contains All" or "Contains in Order." Since 1994, "a," "an," and "the" are deleted from the beginning of the title; so do not enter "a," "an," or "the." The title may be the title of an article, book chapter, conference paper, or an entire book or report.

Document Type

Documents may be journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, conference proceedings, books, or reports. The elements of the citation vary according to the document type (i.e., book chapters use the publication information field for book title, publisher, and editor information).

Spare Fields

The Advanced Search Screen offers these two extra fields to accommodate more complex searching, especially when employing AND NOT in the previous field.

Search Term

This is a word or phrase used to describe the subject of interest or concepts in a search. Search terms may be taken from a controlled vocabulary, called descriptors, or they may be words in the text of the title or abstract. Words found in the title or abstract of an article may be used as search terms.

Boolean Connectors

And, Or, And Not are Boolean Connectors. These are logical operators used to establish a relationship between two or more search terms.

Stop words

In English, words such as "and," "of," and "the" are used frequently and are likely to show up several times in the course of a single written paragraph. To keep search time to a minimum, the computer is programmed to stop searching if it is asked to look for certain words: thus the name "stop word." If one of the words typed in is a stop word, the computer will respond with a message that says, "All the tokens in the phrase are stop words. A phrase must have at least one token which is not a stop word."

To help make the most of a search, look at the complete and alphabetical list of stop words. If you feel other words should be added, or that certain words should not be stop words, please e-mail us at the e-mail address: tobaccoinfo@cdc.gov



Frequently Asked Questions About Searching (FAQs)

Question: Why does the database not have any records on my topic?
Answer: It is possible that a search may not find any records for the topic you have selected because

  • You may be searching on words outside the scope of this database.
  • The words you used may be misspelled.
  • Your search may be too specific. You do not need to use every search field available.
  • You are searching on pre-1989 literature and many of these records are missing descriptors.

Question: Is this database case sensitive?

Answer: No, the database does not recognize the difference between upper or lower case letters.

Question: Why do all the fields not show up for each citation?

Answer: Fields that do no show up are empty for that citation.

Question: Where can I get the full-text or copies of the documents cited?

Answer: Most journal articles and books are available through public, university, or special libraries. Dissertations are frequently sold by University Microfilms International (call 1-800-521-1600). Government documents and papers are frequently sold by the Government Printing Office (call 202-512-1800). Publications from the Office on Smoking and Health are available by calling 770-488-5705.

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This page last reviewed September 09, 2003

United States Department of Health and Human Services
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