The online tutorials made available on this page may be helpful If you are new to using the journal article databases.
Scopus includes over 19 500 peer reviewed journals in the physical, life and health sciences. It provides 100% coverage of PubMed and Science Direct journals.
Tutorial opens in a new window - Scopus - Performing a Document Search
The Web of Science Core Collection covers over 9000 key journals across all science and engineering disciplines.
Further Web of Science training videos are available.
PubMed is the free internet database for medical research from the US National Library of Medicine. It provides comprehensive coverage of the medical literature. The tutorial below provides more information on how to make the most of the MeSH (medical subject) Headings used by PubMed to classify articles.
Scifinder includes both Medline (PubMed) and Chemical Abstracts. Chemical Abstracts is the most accurate and comprehensive index for chemistry and materials science. Coverage includes journal articles and patents, substance data, chemical reactions, chemical regulatory data and chemical suppliers.
You need to register before you can access SciFinder. After completing the registration form you will receive an email asking you to confirm your registration by clicking on the link provided in the email. The email link is valid for a short time only so be sure to confirm your registration as soon as you receive the email. Register online to use SciFinder web.
Topic Searching in SciFinder
SciFinder is set up so that you can get results by simply typing in a sentence. However to search more effectively you should still set up a Boolean search. for eg. :
(radiation or radiotherapy or radiology) and ("lung motion" or "respiratory motion") and dosimetr*
Once you have done this you need to enter the search in stages using the Refine - by Research Topic option that will appear after the first set of results are showing. eg. :
radiation or radiotherapy or radiology
(= >2 million results)
Select the second option with >2 million results, click on Get References, then select Refine - by Research Topic and type in:
lung motion or respiratory motion
Select Refine - by Research Topic again and type in:
dosimetry
(= 173 results)
NOTE: Scifinder does not use double quotes for phrases or the asterix for truncation.
To limit results by subject term keywords select Analyse – by Index Term then select Show More for the full list
Another useful option is Categorize which allows you to filter results by subdiscipline.
To set up alerts for a SciFinder search:
Click on Create Keep Me Posted Alert at the top right hand of the results display.
More information: https://www.cas.org/File Library/Training/SciFinder/kmp.pdf
More Boolean logic options in SciFinder:
It's possible to Save individual searches then open up Saved Searches - Saved Answer Sets. On this page you can select two or more searches and then click on Combine Answer Sets. Available options include: Combine, Intersect, Include, Exclude.
More information: http://www.cas.org/training/scifinder/need-to-know-general-topics#save
Other Searching in SciFinder
The SciFinder Training Materials page provides tutorials on:
SciFinder User Guide
Information Retrieval: SciFinder - Online & Print - Bundoora, Swanston
Call No:025.065 R545
214 page book by Damon Ridley from the School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Australia.