Slide 1
This short module on ProQuest Dialog™ demonstrates where you can find search tips and help.
Slide 2
ProQuest Dialog is very easy to search. Even so, online help abounds. A context-sensitive Help link appears at the top right corner of each screen. The middle of the opening screen provides "Search the online help," which opens to an overview of ProQuest and Dialog and basic information about navigating ProQuest Dialog.
Slide 3
When we clicked Help at the top of the screen, the ProQuest Dialog Help opened to Basic Search. Basic Search is highlighted in the table of contents in the left panel. Scroll down on the right to browse topics and get information. ProQuest Dialog Help also has a Search feature, which we'll address later.
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We have entered the Energy & Environment subject category. We'll try a quick search on renewable or sustainable energy. The top bar tells us the number of databases we are searching. Databases are described below the search query bar. You can scroll down and learn about the databases in the Energy & Environment category.
Slide 5
This is the results page. As you can see ProQuest Dialog found a number of results. Below the results number, ProQuest Dialog presents suggested subjects powered by ProQuest Smart Search. We could easily click one of these links to get focused articles about a topic. On the right panel, we have options to Sort by relevance or by publication date in ascending or descending order. Duplicate documents have been removed by default. You can click Change underneath Duplicate document settings to change the order of database preferences.
ProQuest Dialog presents ways to narrow the search, by journal titles, by document types, subjects and more, with terms ranked in descending order. Let's click Tips underneath the query box.
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We'll press the Information button on Duplicate document settings to find out how we can control our database preference order. We'll click Change to get to the Duplicate document settings page.
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On the Duplicate Documents — Order Preference page, we clicked Help at the top right to learn about Database Ordering and Duplicates. We found out we could enter preference numbers or drag and drop databases up and down the list. We learned to press Apply preferred databases after making our changes.
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Back in the results page, when we click Tips, Search Tips are highlighted and we can browse through to get assistance, for example on some basics, how ProQuest Dialog interprets your search, operators and truncation.
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Scrolling down we find information on ways to broaden or narrow our searches and we learn that AND is assumed when multiple terms are entered. We learn how to specify exact phrases by using quotation marks around the terms.
Slide 10
And scrolling further down we get help on using Boolean and proximity connectors.
Slide 11*
Alternatively, from the results page when we click Help at the top right corner, ProQuest Dialog opens the help text to Basic Results and we can scroll down the text for information.
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We can learn how to modify searches, work with results and use many other functions.
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Let's take a look at the Advanced Search screen. Query boxes appear where you can enter search terms. There are many Search helps in this screen. Help appears on the top right of every screen and links to Field codes and Tips appear above the field drop-down menu. Some fields, such as the Author and the Publication title provide look-up lists, and we can use the look-up Authors feature in the middle of the screen.
Notice the list of additional industry groupings on the right. At any time we can scroll down and get an idea of what other sources we can use.
Slide 14
When we click Help at the top right, the section on Advanced Search opens.
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Scrolling down the Advanced Search page we find a list of databases that we can choose to select all or clear all and check off the boxes for those we wish. The "I" icon provides a description for each database.
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We can use drop-down lists next to the search query boxes if we wish to qualify to fields. We want additional information on field searching. We'll click Tips to find it.
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In Tips, we linked to Search fields. Let's click Search to find out what field to use for Conference Title.
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We'll enter the keyword conference code in the search box, and click Search.
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Common Field Codes seems like the most logical place. Let's click it.
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We scrolled down to find field names and codes. Ah, here it is: the field to use for conference title is CFTI.
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Search Tips told us that the way to search on a field is to put the field code first followed by the search query within parentheses. We'll click Search to see our results.
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ProQuest Dialog returns our results and we'll sort our retrieval by Publication date (most recent first).
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We've clicked Preview to get a glimpse of the first record. We can see that this paper comes from a 2011 conference. Notice the Document types on the right panel are Conference Papers, Conferences, Working Papers and Proceedings, so essentially all the records are papers from conferences. We'll click a title to see a record.
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Since we are a transactional customer we got a Price Preview and we'll click Continue to proceed to the record.
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This citation from British Library Inside Conferences is from a conference on renewable energy sources, held in July 2011 in Iasi, Romania.
Slide 26
While straightforward and intuitive, ProQuest Dialog provides a multitude of help options throughout the interface. End-users and advanced searchers alike can point and click to a number of reference points on each search page. These include Help at the top right, Search Tips, Smart searching terms, easy-to-understand qualifiers and sorting options, and database descriptions.
Be sure to visit the ProQuest Dialog Customer Information page to learn about the content and features of this new service.
Slide 27
Thank you for viewing the ProQuest Dialog at a Glance module on finding online helps and search tips. Press the Training and Support tabs on the ProQuest Dialog Customer Information page for links to other training opportunities and search aids.
