To access the full text of articles in Ovid, you must link to other databases.
Please see the tabs at the top of the box for more information.
Click on the button "External Resolver."
In the new window that loads, click on one of the links listed.
*Note: If the pages does not load, check that pop-ups aren't being blocked
Click on the button "Full Text."
When this option is available, the link may go to one of several databases.
However, somewhere in the new window that loads, there should be an option to view the full text. The example below is just one place this link my direct you.
*Note: If the pages does not load, check that pop-ups aren't being blocked
This search option is helpful for quick searches on a topic but is not recommended for comprehensive, systematic searching as you are likely to miss relevant items.
To use Basic Search, type a word or phrase and click the Search button. Tick the Include Related Terms box if you want to
Boolen and special characters will not work in Basic search.
Help video
A keyword search will retrieve articles that contain your search term somewhere in the record. To carry out a comprehensive search, you should search for keywords and subject headings.
Enter a word or phrase into the search box and make sure the "Map term to subject headings" box is NOT ticked.
Limits offer the option to refine your search according to criteria that are difficult to search using text words, e.g. the type of article, publication date, age group, language of publication, etc.
Click the Limits link underneath the search box in 'Advanced Search' to view a selection of the most popular limits. Select one (or more) of them and type into the search box the number of the search line you wish to limit. Click Search and your limited search will appear as an additional line in your search history.
If you need more extensive limit options, click Additional limits. To use them, click the radio button alongside the search you wish to limit and make selections from the menus, then click the Limit A Search button.
Multi-field Search is useful if you wish to retrieve records where a search term appears in a particular field, such as the Author or Title field. It is not designed for comprehensive topic searching, for which you are advised to use Advanced Search, but can be useful to restrict a textword search to a particular field.
To build a multi-field search, click the Multi-Field Search tab and type your search terms into the form. You can choose to type in words or phrases. Choose which fields to search using the drop-down menus on the right. Combine with the operators AND and OR using the drop-down menus on the left.
Ovid automatically searches for multiple words as a phrase.
To search for multiple words, not as a phrase, you should type AND in between the words.
Subject headings are assigned terms to uniformly capture a concept.
Searching using these standardized words or phrases, instead of keywords, means you do not need to worry as much about synonyms and spelling variations, and also allows you to retrieve more precise results.
Subject Headings are terms that are allocated to each article to describe its content. Searching via Subject Headings is an efficient way to search databases as they cater for the differences in spellings/words meanings and can make your search results more relevant and specific.
To see if a Subject Heading is available for your terms, tick the 'Map term to subject heading' box before you click the Search button.
The system will compare your search term to the subject headings that have been used to index the articles in that particular database.
You might be offered an exact match on the next displayed screen - this will usually be ticked automatically. If there isn't an exact match, you may need to select the most appropriate one.
The 'Scope' note on the page's right-hand side will provide more detail about how the subject heading is used. This can be used to help you determine if the subject term you are using is correct.
Clicking 'continue' once a term is ticked will offer you a choice of different subheadings:
As a general rule, especially at the beginning of a search, you should include all subheadings to maximise the amount of results you retrieve. You can always narrow your search later.
Clicking 'Continue' will add your subject heading search to your search history.
Like MeSH in PubMed, Ovid's Subject Headings are a way to fine-tune your results. For example, a general search on the word "culture" has the following results:
If you search using the "Map to Subject Headings" option, you might see options to "explode" or "focus" the term entered.
See an example below using the term "diabetes."
For example, a search on the word Diabetes using "Map to Subject Headings" gave these options:
If your topic is Gestational Diabetes, using Subject Headings will save a lot of time by eliminating quite a few other areas.
Clicking on the box in front of Diabetes, Gestational brings you to a page with subheadings. This allows you to refine your search even further. If you want all information about Gestational Diabetes, click the Include All Subheadings box. That will return 7527 results.
Choosing Explode (as shown in the image slightly farther up the page) brings you to the same screen as directly above, except now there are 9017 results. This is because Explode returns articles that pertain to Gestational Diabetes but do not have it as a main topic.
Choosing Focus (as shown in the image slightly farther up the page) brings you to the same screen as directly above, except now there are 6190 results. This is because Focus returns only those articles that have Gestational Diabetes as a main topic.
The Advanced Search screen is displayed as the default when opening the Ovid database. This is the best search option for conducting a thorough subject search and developing a systematic search strategy.
When carrying out a search on a topic, you should first consider what the key concepts are for that topic. When building an Advanced Search, you should search for each of your target concepts one at a time before combining them together.
For comprehensive results, you should search subject headings by doing a thesaurus search and a text word search for each of your concepts. You can then combine your searches together.
Tick the boxes of the lines of the searches you wish to combine (e.g. 1 and 2) and then select AND or OR using the logic below, before clicking on Combine:
|
stress OR anxiety
|
|
Documents that discuss either stress or anxiety |
|
stress AND anxiety |
|
Documents that discuss |
Remember, use OR to combine terms that are similar to one another. This will broaden your search. Use AND to combine different concepts. This will focus your search.
Your search might look something like this:
Click Search History in the top left-hand corner to view your searches and the number of results for each one.
You can use the Search History to:
Standard notation used in the Search History can help you determine the nature of each search line:
To combine searches, use the box(es) alongside each search line and click AND or OR. Your combined search forms a new line in the History. You can also remove searches by ticking the box(es) and clicking the Remove button at the bottom of the history panel.
You may find you wish to edit your search history, particularly where you are building up a complex search strategy. For example, you may need to edit a search term, such as by adding truncation (see textword searching), or to add or remove a search term.
Truncation and wildcards
The dollar sign $ or the asterisk * can be used to represent any number of characters at the end of a word.
e.g., therap$ finds therapy, therapies, therapist, etc.
The hash symbol # represents just one character in the middle or at the end of a word.
e.g., wom#n finds woman or women.
The question mark ? represents 0 or 1 character in the middle or at the end of a word.
e.g., colo?r finds color or colour
Proximity searching
ADJn finds two words within n words of each other and in any order.
e.g. cancer ADJ3 colon would find these two words where they are within three words of each other, such as colon cancer or cancer of the colon
If you are not retrieving articles that you expect, you may need to look again at your keywords.
This is something Rebekah Prette (PretteR@camosun.ca) can help with, either in person or via email. See the 'Need More Help?' tab for more information.
It could also be the case that your research topic is not well-covered in academic literature, and you may need to reconsider or revise your topic
Have you comprehensively planned your search and considered alternative terms for your keywords?
If not, adding more search terms can help capture more results.
Don't forget to include truncation to include results with different endings or spellings.
Have you found any relevant articles elsewhere (e.g. from a resources list or Google search)? You might like to scan the title and abstract of these articles to help identify useful keywords you could incorporate into your search.
Alternatively, you might be using too many concepts in your search. Try removing some of the less essential terms from your search strategy.
Check your spelling if you are getting zero results on any of your search lines.
Have you added any limits to your search?
Are your keywords too broad? Can you make them narrower?
It might also be the case that the scope of your search is too broad.
Can you identify any additional concepts that could help focus your results?
