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Showing posts from January, 2022

Tip #2: Check for erroneous computer indexing in Embase

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 I recently sought help from colleagues on the expertsearching listserv  regarding puzzling results I was seeing in Embase (in this case, on the Ovid platform). I was searching for articles about the category of medical trainees known in the USA as residents. Here's the scope note for the EMTREE term "resident": (For screen reader users: The scope note cites the Dorland's definition, "a graduate and licensed physician receiving training in a specialty, usually in a hospital," and states this subject heading is synonymous with "interns and residents, resident doctor, resident physician, resident surgeon, surgery resident, surgical resident.") So far, so good, right? Well, here are the first 5 results for exp resident/ :  COVID-19 in French Nursing Homes during the Second Pandemic Wave: A Mixed-Methods Cross-Sectional Study COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against laboratory confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 related hospitalizations

Tip #1: Bulk export from Google Scholar

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This post was updated on October 10, 2022 with new instructions for #3 under "For EndNote users..." For years, I kept hearing from colleagues that I should be searching Google Scholar as part of my systematic review projects. I didn't, for 3 reasons: I didn't know GS' search syntax GS notoriously does not allow bulk export to reference managers I didn't have a sense of how many results I should export.   Last fall, I finally said enough was enough and it was time to learn how to wrangle this beast. It turns out that there is now a third-party tool that facilitates bulk export from Google Scholar, Harzing's Publish or Perish . Here's how you get started: Download PoP for free Paste your query into the Keywords field Set your maximum number of results. I follow the guidelines on p. 135 of Wichor Bramer's dissertation , which is a great handbook for expert searching. Bramer suggests the first 200 results, or 100 if you are getting low numbers of res

Introducing Database Tip Sheets

Greetings, searchers! This blog is the home for a new initiative of the User Experience Caucus of the Medical Library Association : the Database Tip Sheets.  The Tip Sheets are bite-size tips for expert searchers on how to search more efficiently. If you'd like to contribute a tip or be added as a contributor to the blog, email Kate Saylor at: kmacdoug at umich.edu.