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In this ProQuest Dialog™ module you will learn how to conduct an Advanced Search in biomedical literature and learn about some of the new features of ProQuest Dialog.
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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 the down caret, you will be taken to a complete list of databases.
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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.
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We'll begin our search in some of the databases in the Biomedical & Pharmaceutical subject group. Click the ones you want to search and press Use selected databases.
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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 5.
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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 5. In the Advanced Search screen, we'll enter our search terms in the search boxes. Enter the first search term—asterisk toxic asterisk that can lead to toxicity and other variations as well as prefixes before toxic. In the drop-down box select fields you want to search, for this term all fields but full text and click Preview result counts to stay on the search screen. The results of your search will display in Recent searches after each search.
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Results display as S1 under Recent searches. Next, in search box 2 enter the second term obesity or overweight. Notice as you type, words display that might be appropriate for your term. You can continue to type your terms or click a term from the list. You can also turn off this auto-complete feature by clicking the link at the bottom of the auto-complete list. Select Document title from the drop-down box. Then click the Preview result counts button.
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Review the results count in Recent searches. We'll refine the search further by entering our third search query in the dialog box. Enter terms to narrow to child* or adolescen* or youth and click the Search button to go to the Results page.
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On the Results page we see our search query with all search terms in the dialog box. From our list of results you'll note on the right side Narrow results by. Click a + sign and you can limit, for example, to a specific document type.
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We can also use the date slider to narrow retrieval to specific time periods, such as a year or range of years. By hovering over a bar, we see the number of retrieved records published in a certain year. We slide the bar tabs to the years we want, or click on a bar, such as the one for the current year. By hovering over a bar we can find out how many records were published in a certain year. Once we narrow to a specific year, ProQuest Dialog shows the number of records my month.
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Results can be sorted by relevance or date. We'll sort by publication date, most recent first by selecting it from the drop-down box and clicking Sort.
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On the Results list a Preview link lets you view part of the record for relevancy. Results are narrowed by date and also sorted by date. Notice to the right under Sort the duplicate documents preferences have not been applied to this search. Click the Change link so you can set the order of databases from which you want duplicates removed.
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You can set your preferred order here by entering the rank next to the database. Click Apply preferred databases.
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To see the full record, click its title or check the records you want to view in more detail, in this case records 1 and 5. Then click Selected items at the top of the screen. In the popup box, check the radio button for the format you want and click Display. If using ProQuest Dialog transactionally, a Price Preview popup appears indicating the estimated cost of viewing the format you have chosen. Click Continue.
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The records you check display. In this record you see the abstract and indexing details including links to authors, classifications, publication title and more.
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In order to save a search strategy or an Alert you will need a My Research account. To learn about My Research, view the My Research module.
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For a second search we'll search a group of databases. Click the down caret and View by industry. Then check the industries you want to search—Diagnostics & Medical Devices and Pharmaceutical & Biomedical databases. Press Use selected databases.
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Note the number of databases we are searching is listed at the top of the screen. Click Advanced Search.
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If you had just logged on to ProQuest Dialog, you would see a clear search form; however, since we just completed a search, we'll need to clear the form. Press Clear form. We'll also want to delete the searches from the previous search in our Recent Searches tab. Check the box next to Set to clear all or specific searches if desired.
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You will receive a confirmation that you want to delete the search queries. Press Delete.
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Now enter your search terms in the top row. Place quotation marks about terms you want to appear as a phrase. ProQuest Dialog assumes AND between terms. From the drop-down box, limit to searching the document title. Press Preview result counts to stay on this page. You will see all searches in the Recent searches tab.
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Notice your first search strategy and number of results are listed as S1 under Recent searches. Enter search terms in Row 2. We've added an asterisk after low to retrieve low or lower. From the drop-down box, we'll search all fields but full text. Press Preview result counts.
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You can see both sets in Recent Searches. S2 narrowed the search significantly. Enter search terms in row 3 and search all fields but full text from the drop-down box. Note that if you think you want to add another row of terms, click Add a row. Press Search to go to results.
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Results display with our search terms highlighted. We can preview or view records now or refine the search further by date or Narrow results by.
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We'll narrow to a date range by moving the tabs to encompass 2007-2011 and click Update. We could also enter a specific date range by clicking the link.
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We'll add one more limit by subject and check only those boxes of terms to include in the search. Click Apply.
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The number of records with each term we selected shows under Narrow results by Subject. At the top of the screen are the subject terms we included.
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Click Preview to see a sampling of the record before selecting records to view. You can click a title to see the entire record or view multiple records by checking boxes next to titles of interest and click Selected items. We can also Save records to My Research, email them, print or save as a file or Export them to an Excel spreadsheet. You also may want to create an Alert or RSS feed.
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To sum up, Advanced search lets you create multiple search strategies and combine them as you choose. In our first search we chose our industry and subsequently several databases. We entered several search queries and Narrowed results by date range. For open truncation, we used an asterisk and we could have used a question mark to allow only one character.
We were able to click a button to preview records, and we browsed and selected records of choice to work with during the session. In our second search we searched an entire industry, created individual searches and viewed results in Recent searches. Again we continued to refine using Narrow results by features.
Thank you for viewing the At a Glance module using features of Advanced Search on ProQuest Dialog. Visit the new ProQuest Dialog Training page for more search aids, self-paced modules and Webinar training courses.
