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. At times we need help in carrying out a search or in making the next step. There are a number of ways we can get help while online. First, Search tips jump right out at us on the Basic Search screen when we log in. For more in-depth information, we can click on Help at the top right corner of the screen. Notice, too, we can click on "Search the online help" located at the bottom of the opening screen.
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.
Slide 4
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. On the right panel, we have options to Sort by relevance or by publication date in ascending or descending order.
ProQuest Dialog presents ways to narrow the search, by Publication title, by document type, Subject, Classification and more. Let's click Tips underneath the query box.
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Tips pop up. Notice that “Search Tips” is highlighted on the left in the Table of Contents. We can browse through to get assistance, for example on some basics, how ProQuest Dialog interprets our search; read about 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.
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And scrolling further down we get help on using Boolean and proximity connectors.
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Alternatively, from the Results page when we click Help at the top right corner, ProQuest Dialog opens the help text to Results Page Options 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 Search 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. On the right, you can read the Search tips that show how to enter terms using truncation, when to use quotation marks and review proximity connectors.
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When we click Help at the top right, this section on Advanced Search opens.
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We can search for a topic. Click Search and enter the concept you want to find, such as how to search for date ranges.
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A list of places that contain our terms appears with hyperlinks. We'll click Advanced Search.
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We scroll down and find our highlighted terms and we can read about our topic.
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We can use drop-down menus next to the search query boxes if we wish to qualify to a field.
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One of the powerful resources in the Scientific Technical Medical literature is conference information, including proceedings, titles, meetings and abstracts. —— CF. Let's see what fields are available to search specifically for conferences. We'll click Field codes.
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The Field codes link takes us directly to Common Field Codes and we can scroll down and look for conference field codes. We see that we can link to ProSheets from here, too. We'll take a look at a ProSheet later, while we're here, but first, let's look at field codes for conferences.
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Here are field codes for Conference sponsor, Conference, Conference title.
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Now, let's link to a ProSheet. BIOSIS Previews® is a database in the Energy & Environment industry category and it is very strong in conference data. We'll get detailed information about BIOSIS, including its specific field codes.
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The first page of the BIOSIS Previews ProSheet contains a description of content and lists topics the file covers.
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Click hyperlinks to see Search Fields, Limit Options, Command Line Common Concepts and more, pertinent to this database.
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BIOSIS Previews has fields for Conference information, Conference location, Conference sponsor and Conference title. To search for a conference title, we'll use the field code CFTI. The syntax to qualify terms to field codes is field code, open parenthesis, terms, close parenthesis.
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We can scroll down or hyperlink to learn about limit options, Command Line common searches, Narrow results by limiters and Browse fields.
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And so, we'll enter field code CFTI, open parenthesis renewable energy, close parenthesis, and that will search for all the records in the Energy & Environment industry category that indexed records with the conference title containing the words renewable and energy. This does not mean we are searching for records with titles containing renewable and energy, but Conference Titles with these words. Now, 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 2012 conference. Notice the Document types on the right panel include Conference Paper, Conference, Working Paper, and Conference Proceeding, so essentially the records are papers from conferences. We'll click a title to see a record.
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This citation from Inspec® is from a conference on renewable energies and vehicular technology, held in 2012.
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Scrolling down, we see the Conference title, start and end date, location and country.
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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 31
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.
