lecture 5 Flashcards
primary source
first disclosure containing sufficient info to enable peers to assess observations, repeat experiments and evaluate intellectual processes
secondary source
most books, review articles, indexes to the literature, usually summerize/reviews/organizies info
impact factor
measure of a particular journal’s impact based on how often that journal’s articles are cited
pros of key word searching
very current projects/topics
no knowledge of controlled vocabulary needed
slang
broad
cons of key word searching
not consistent
burden on end-user to discover synonyms
too many irrelevant results
difficult to limit results
when to use controlled vocabularies
searching database that uses one (MeSH, EMTREE)
pros controlled vocabularies
burden on database to discover variations in terms
consistent, reproducible
specified and targeted
cons controlled vocabularies
restrictive
burden on end use to learn vocabulary
vocabularies differ
boolean operators
and/or/not
what does adding an * do
tells engine to retrieve the word stem with different endings
how to search for an exact phrase
put it in quotation marks
what do parentheses do
used to appropriately group the terms and operators to control the order of the search
what does ‘explode’ mean
instructs the search engine to retrieve the information with a broad subject heading that are broken down into narrower subject headings
internal validity
the degree to which teh results of a study are likely to approximate the “truth”
threats to internal validity
bias, error, confounding
