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Chemical Literature (Chem 184/284) |
Lecture 13: SciFinder Scholar, Part II
Research Topic Searching
Quiz Questions
Note: Check ALL correct answers to each question. There may be more than one correct answer.
Question 1: SciFinder (SF), in either the Scholar or Web versions, approaches topic (or keyword) searching very differently in certain respects than most other indexing databases. What are some of the key differences between SF and other scientific indexes?
- _____ Multi-term queries in SF are supposed to be expressed in natural language phrases.
- _____ SF searches "research topic" terms in the document title, abstract and subject headings.
- _____ SF does not allow you to use truncation of search terms.
- _____ SF automatically checks for names of chemical substances and searches their CAS Registry Numbers as well as the name you put in..
- _____ SF has no way to allow entry of synonyms for search terms, while other databases let you string synonyms together using the Boolean operator OR.
Question 2: You've entered a phrase for research topic searcing in SF and it's come back with several possible answer sets. Which is the most restrictive?
- _____ The phrase "as entered".
- _____ "Concepts closely associated with one aother".
- _____ Concepts "present anywhee in te reference".
Question 3: If you want to combine an author search and topic search in SF, how can you go about it?
- _____ Enter the author's name and the topic terms together in a keyword search as you would in PEGASUS.
- _____ Do the author search, then Refine with the research topic terms.
- _____ Do the topic search, then Refine with the author's name.
- _____ Do the two searches separately and then use Combine Searches (SF Scholar).
- _____ Do the topic search then Analyze by author name, and select your author from the list.
- _____ Do the author search then Analyze by CA Index Term, and select your terms from the list.
Question 4: Which of the following entries is the most effective way to search for "hydrolysis or alcoholysis of lactams" in SF?
- _____ Hydrolysis or alcoholysis of lactams.
- _____ Alcoholysis OR hydrolysis of lactams.
- _____ Lactams AND (hydrolysis or alcoholysis).
- _____ Lactams (hydrolysis, alcoholysis).
- _____ Hydrolysis (alcoholysis) of lactams.
The following two questions require searching on SciFinder Scholar or SciFinder Web. You may do them on your own before class, or do them in class on lecture day before handing them in.
Question 5: Perform the most effective search from question 4 above. Select the answer set with "lactams" and "alcoholysis" closely assciated with one another. Look at some of the resulting answers. You will find tthat there are many answers which do not contain the term "alcoholysis" and so are irrelevant to the search. Why do most of those answers appear?
- _____ SF uses automatic truncation, so you are pulling up answers with the term "alcohol" but not necessarily "alcoholysis".
- _____ Alcoholysis is not a CA Index Term.
- _____ Alcoholysis is not the term actually used for the reaction in chemistry.
- _____ Alcoholysis is abbreviated in the abstracts as alcoholy.
Question 6: What would be an efficient way to narrow the answer set in question 5 to just answers which actually have "alcoholysis" in them?.
- _____ Refine the answers using alcoholysis as your topic term.
- _____ Analyze the answers by CA Index Term, and select the answers with Alcoholysis as an Index Term.
- _____ Find one paper with "alcoholysis" in it be inspecting the list, then Refine by the name of the principal author in that paper.
- _____ Analyze by Document Type and pick out the General Reviews.
- _____ Analyze by Supplementary Terms, sorted alphabetically, and pick out the ones with "alcoholysis" as a supplementary term.
This page created by Chuck Huber (huber@library.ucsb.edu).
Updated: 02/15/08 10:46:17