Slide 1
In this ProQuest Dialog™ module you will learn how to use different forms of truncation along with Boolean operators in ProQuest Dialog.
Slide 2
In this example we will search the databases—Embase®, Lancet Titles and MEDLINE® in the Pharmaceutical & Biomedical industry, to find information on the relationship between hypoglycemia and the heart in women.
Slide 3
Login with your ProQuest Dialog™ user id and password. Your initial login will take you to the opening screen where you can start database selection. If you click change, you will be taken to a complete list of databases.
Slide 4
Click Select all to uncheck all databases. Click View by industry or view by name. Then check boxes next to database names you want to search.
Slide 5
We'll begin our search in some of the databases in the Healthcare subject group. Click the ones you want to search and press Use selected databases. In this example we'll search Embase, Lancet Titles and MEDLINE.
Slide 6
Click Advanced Search to go to the search screen. Notice at the top of the screen, the number of databases we selected is given, in this example 3.
Slide 7
First we'll enter our search term in the first line of the search box. *-G-L-Y-C-*-M-*. This will retrieve hypoglycemia using left-hand truncation, glycemia and glycaemia with the British spelling and glycemic or glycemia from the ending truncation. Select Document title from the drop-down box. To complete several search on this search page, check the box Show number of results and stay on this page. Then press the Preview result counts button.
Slide 8
The results from our first search display in Recent searches. Now, enter your second set of terms wom?n or female. Note the question mark takes the place of one character. No truncation is needed at the end of female because ProQuest Dialog automatically retrieves plurals too. Select All fields (no full text) from the drop-down box. Then press Review result counts.
Slide 9
The results of your second search show in Recent searches. Now, select the Boolean operator AND from the drop-down box; then enter cardio* or heart to narrow further. Use the asterisk to retrieve all forms of the word cardio. From the drop-down box select All fields (no full text). Press Review result counts.
Slide 10
We now have 3 searches in Recent searches. We'll add one more search term. To do so, click the + sign to Add a row and enter your search term in row 4. From the drop-down box select All fields (no full text) and change the Boolean operator from AND to NOT to eliminate retrieving records with this term. Now we'll go directly to the results page. Press Search.
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Since we want the most recent records, we'll limit to a date range 2010 and 2011 by scrolling down to the bottom of Narrow Results by.
Slide 12
We'll limit to 2010 and 2011 by dragging the tabs to those dates and press Update.
Slide 13
In the Results list a Preview link to the right of the title allows you to view parts of the record for relevancy. We'll take a look at 2 records by checking the boxes next to the titles and clicking Selected items. From the pop-up box click the display format—how much of the record you want to view. And press Display.
Slide 14
We have an abstract with our keywords highlighted and indexing details. We can also click links for authors to see what else they have written. Now we can save this record in our My Research account or we can go back to the results.
Slide 15
In summary, you can use truncation in Basic, Advanced and Command Line Search. Enter your search term using an asterisk before, internally or at the end of a term. You can also substitute one or more question marks, each question mark taking the place of one character. The AND, OR, and NOT Boolean operators are available to connect different terms, synonyms or eliminate a term. Be sure to visit the ProQuest Dialog Customer Information page to learn about the content and features of this new service.
Slide 16
Thank you for reviewing the ProQuest Dialog At a Glance module on Using Truncation and Boolean operators. Press the Training & Support tabs on the ProQuest Dialog Customer Information page for more search aids and training options.
