Examining Your Results
From Ash Lierman
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Library instruction for PHIL 09211 on examining and learning from your search results.
Transcript follows below:
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Even once you have the right tools and the right words, you’re unlikely to just search once and get everything you need on the first try. I have a degree in this, and I don’t get everything I need on the first try. More important than trying to construct the perfect search is taking the time to take a good look at your results, each time you search, and learn from them.
First, you want to investigate how relevant your results seem. Scan through the first page, looking at the titles and the abstracts, which summarize what the article is about. Are you seeing mostly results that seem like they would be useful for you? That’s good news, you put together a good starting search. Can you see your search terms showing up in the titles, abstracts, and the lists of Subjects – which are keywords for what the articles are about – for the articles that look relevant? Can you see how the terms you used line up with the good information you’re getting? Also, are there other words there that seem like they might be helpful to add to your search, or that describe another concept you were getting at but couldn’t quite phrase right? For example, I can see here that “mind and reality” is a term used in this article; maybe when I see that, I realize that’s something I’m looking for too.
Or, alternately, do most of the articles you’re finding seem like they aren’t quite what you’re looking for? That’s okay, you might just not have hit on exactly the right words yet. If you look at the titles, abstracts, and subjects, can you figure out how your search terms are leading to articles that aren’t quite right? If you do have a couple of relevant articles mixed in, how do the words used in their titles, abstracts, and Subjects compare to the ones in the irrelevant articles? What should you be taking out and leaving in?
Now you can use what you’ve learned from your results to adjust your search accordingly, and search again. You might have better results this time – or you might suddenly have no results. No or too few results tends to mean you’re being too specific, or you aren’t quite using the right words; you might want to try making your search broader and less specific. If you’re getting too many results, on the other hand, you might want to try adding some additional concepts, or making your search more specific. Adjust, check your results, learn from them, and adjust again until you’re getting what you need.
Finally, when you have an article that you want to keep, look for a link below it that says PDF Full Text, or sometimes HTML Full Text. Clicking on that will get you to the full article, which you can then read, save, print, or do anything else with that you need. Sometimes, though, you won’t see a “full text” option. Instead, you’ll see this button with a Rowan torch and “Get it!” written very small on it. That means we don’t have the full article in this database, but we might have it somewhere else. Click the button, and it’ll automatically check across all of our online articles for you. In this case, we really don’t subscribe to this journal at all, so we don’t have access. If we did, just like with e-books, you’d see a “View Online” section on this screen with links to where you could find the article. Instead, what you see here is a link to order the article through Interlibrary Loan. Interlibrary Loan is a service the library offers, where if we don’t own something, we can get a copy for you for free from another library. Just click that link, log in with your Rowan NetID username and password, and you’ll be taken to an order form for the article that’s already filled out. You just have to make sure it’s correct and click Submit. Within a few days, you’ll get an email telling you that the article has arrived, and you can go to Interlibrary Loan on the library website, choose ILLiad, and log back into this system to retrieve it. It’ll be available for you to download under this section in the left-hand menu, that says Electronically Received Articles.
Transcript follows below:
-----
Even once you have the right tools and the right words, you’re unlikely to just search once and get everything you need on the first try. I have a degree in this, and I don’t get everything I need on the first try. More important than trying to construct the perfect search is taking the time to take a good look at your results, each time you search, and learn from them.
First, you want to investigate how relevant your results seem. Scan through the first page, looking at the titles and the abstracts, which summarize what the article is about. Are you seeing mostly results that seem like they would be useful for you? That’s good news, you put together a good starting search. Can you see your search terms showing up in the titles, abstracts, and the lists of Subjects – which are keywords for what the articles are about – for the articles that look relevant? Can you see how the terms you used line up with the good information you’re getting? Also, are there other words there that seem like they might be helpful to add to your search, or that describe another concept you were getting at but couldn’t quite phrase right? For example, I can see here that “mind and reality” is a term used in this article; maybe when I see that, I realize that’s something I’m looking for too.
Or, alternately, do most of the articles you’re finding seem like they aren’t quite what you’re looking for? That’s okay, you might just not have hit on exactly the right words yet. If you look at the titles, abstracts, and subjects, can you figure out how your search terms are leading to articles that aren’t quite right? If you do have a couple of relevant articles mixed in, how do the words used in their titles, abstracts, and Subjects compare to the ones in the irrelevant articles? What should you be taking out and leaving in?
Now you can use what you’ve learned from your results to adjust your search accordingly, and search again. You might have better results this time – or you might suddenly have no results. No or too few results tends to mean you’re being too specific, or you aren’t quite using the right words; you might want to try making your search broader and less specific. If you’re getting too many results, on the other hand, you might want to try adding some additional concepts, or making your search more specific. Adjust, check your results, learn from them, and adjust again until you’re getting what you need.
Finally, when you have an article that you want to keep, look for a link below it that says PDF Full Text, or sometimes HTML Full Text. Clicking on that will get you to the full article, which you can then read, save, print, or do anything else with that you need. Sometimes, though, you won’t see a “full text” option. Instead, you’ll see this button with a Rowan torch and “Get it!” written very small on it. That means we don’t have the full article in this database, but we might have it somewhere else. Click the button, and it’ll automatically check across all of our online articles for you. In this case, we really don’t subscribe to this journal at all, so we don’t have access. If we did, just like with e-books, you’d see a “View Online” section on this screen with links to where you could find the article. Instead, what you see here is a link to order the article through Interlibrary Loan. Interlibrary Loan is a service the library offers, where if we don’t own something, we can get a copy for you for free from another library. Just click that link, log in with your Rowan NetID username and password, and you’ll be taken to an order form for the article that’s already filled out. You just have to make sure it’s correct and click Submit. Within a few days, you’ll get an email telling you that the article has arrived, and you can go to Interlibrary Loan on the library website, choose ILLiad, and log back into this system to retrieve it. It’ll be available for you to download under this section in the left-hand menu, that says Electronically Received Articles.
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