Bio 4031: Biological Clocks: Guide for Literature Searches

Medline -- Web of Science -- PsycINFO -- Locating articles -- Fulltext options -- Finding books

• Connect to PubMed
• Search strategy tips:
  • Use "*" for wildcard/truncation
  • Use boolean AND, OR, NOT (upper-case) to combine terms
  • Use parentheses to combine terms
  • Example: (circadian OR scn) AND photoperiod*
  • If results are surprising, click on "DETAILS" to see what was really searched. Sometimes it interprets your searches differently than you intended.
• When you are looking at an especially relevant citation, try some of these techniques:
  • click Display option= Medline (this will usually display subject headings, called MH or MeSH, which provide new search terms to try.)
  • click on "Related Articles" - this will give you citations which have MeSH terms in common with the relevant citation you started with. These will be listed in relevance order, "best" first, so you only need to browse through the first 20-30.
  • If you are working (actually or virtually) on the WU campus, watch for Links to the full text journal; usually this is the logo of the title of the journal. You will be able to read many articles directly from your computer screen by following these links. Note: We may have full text journal available even if there is no link in PubMed.
  • After you have limited (by date or some other criteria) to the articles you want, sort by "journal". Then you only need to search each journal title once, to get library or fulltext location and availability.
  • PubMed Help
  • For other Medline options and help, see http://library.wustl.edu/databases/about/medline.html

• Connect to Web of Science - you must be actually or virtually ON WU campus. See Information about access from outside WU campus
• Usually choose "General Search". If you are starting with a specific article and want to find more recent, related articles that have cited it, choose "Cited Ref Search".
• Search strategy similar to PubMed. Web of Science is NOT case sensitive. Web of Science does not use subject headings; indexing is based on title and abstract keywords and information about cited articles at the end of each article.
• When you are looking at an especially relevant citation, try some of these techniques:
  • "Find Related Records" button. This will display citations that have some references in their bibliographies in common with the article you started on. They will be listed in "relevance" order, so you only need to review the first 20-30 citations.
  • If the relevant citation is more than 1-2 years old, try "Times Cited" link. This will give you newer articles that have cited this article, so you can move forward in time.
• Sort your Marked List of citations by Source Title. Then you only need to search each journal title once, to get library or fulltext location and availability.
• Click on "help" button while you are in the database for extensive documentation on Web of Science.
• Please be sure to click on "logoff", near the top of the screen, when you are finished; the number of concurrent users is limited. Thanks!

• Connect to PsycInfo - you must be actually or virtually ON WU campus. See Information about access from outside WU campus
• Search strategy similar to PubMed or Web of Science or use the search box features presented in Advanced Search window
• Medline and Web of Science index journal articles; in PsycINFO you will get citations to articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, etc.
• More info on PsycINFO

• Consider Fulltext options: Retrieving the article on your computer screen can be a real timesaver. I suggest 4 strategies to determine if we have access to fulltext citations, if Get it! links within the databases do not work. Search by the title of the magazine or journal, NOT the author or title of the article in the journal.
  1. Search in the Becker Medical Library Catalog Journal Search.
  2. Search in the Biology Library list of electronic journals
  3. Search in the Library Catalog of Danforth Campus Libraries Note: search the journal title followed by online for links to fulltext online access at WU. For example: search Journal of biological chemistry online.
  4. Search Ejournals; Browse is often out of date so use Search.
• For journal locations and holdings in paper, search the journal title (not the article title) in the Library Catalog of the Danforth Campus Libraries and the Becker Medical Catalog.
• For journal articles that are not at WU, if you have time (1-2 weeks), consider Interlibrary Loan.

• Please refer to this finding books section of this Guide to Library Research, produced by the Reference Dept. at Olin Library. Don't forget to check and request in Mobius if the book you need is checked out or unowned.
• Since there are several medical libraries included in Mobius, you might find requesting through Mobius is most convenient. But Becker Medical Library (near CWE metro stop) can be searched in the Medical Library Catalog.