4. Ovid - Advanced Features
The Toolbar
| Icon |
Action |
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Extensive Online Help is available at BMA site, and is worth
saving to your hard disc to read at leisure. |
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SEARCHING FOR ARTICLES BY A SPECIFIC AUTHOR: Click
on the icon and then enter author's surname and first initial in the box. Ovid will offer
you a list of authors to select (one or many), and then will combine the selections with
Boolean OR when searching. Alternatively you can use the techniques listed in the Search
Fields category below. |
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SEARCHING BY TITLE: Click on the icon and then enter a
single word or phrase which you think will be present in the title. Ovid will use create a
Search by Title on the Main Search Screen, which is syntactically equivalent to
keyword.ti. or "your phrase".ti. |
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SEARCHING BY JOURNAL TITLE: Click on the icon and then
enter the first part of the journal name. Note that you should not use abbreviations
except for JAMA, CMAJ and the BMJ. Confusingly, both the British Medical Journal and the
BMJ are listed as separate journals, so that you have to combine them to search all of the
BMJ: - ("bmj" or "british medical journal").jn. |
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SEARCHING BY FIELD: Ovid offers you the choice of using
Medline Fields for searching. The most useful are probably: -
| .ab. |
textword
in abstract |
| .au. |
author
smith w.au.=All Smiths + first initial W
smith $1.au.=All Smiths + any single initial
smith $.au. = All Smiths |
| .fs. |
floating
subheading - qualifiers added to MeSH subject headings to refine their meaning. Terms such
as "etiology" or "therapy", when combined with a MeSH heading, give a
very precise idea of what an article covers |
| .jn. |
journal
jama.jn=all articles from the Journal of the American Medical Association |
| .hw. |
heading
word - every MeSH term that contains the keyword (equivalent to using the Permuted Index
and selecting all items but not exploded) |
| .lg. |
language
e.g. eng.lg. |
| .mp. |
textword
in abstract, title or subject heading |
| .pt. |
publication
type e.g. clinical trials.pt. |
| .sh. |
MeSH
subject heading multiple sclerosis.sh. |
| .ti. |
textword
in title e.g. diabet$.ti. |
| .tw. |
textword
in abstract, title |
| .xs. |
exploded
subheading |
| .yr. |
year of
publication e.g. 1998.yr. |
The Ovid
interface automatically generates the appropriate syntax for you, when you use the Search
Fields option, |
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Tree: Ovid allows you to browse up and down the MeSH
hierarchy, selecting relevant MeSH terms. Permuted Index: Searching across the MeSH tree
for MeSH terms containing your keyword. This is one of the tools to use if you having
difficulty mapping your search to MeSH.
Scope Note:
Explains a particular MeSH heading, provides synonyms, lists the year the MeSH heading was
adopted by Medline, previous indexing for the MeSH heading, and cross references to other
possibly relevant MeSH headings.
Explode:
simultaneous searching of both a broad subject and all of the narrower subjects (children)
beneath it in the MeSH tree. Because indexers use the most specific subject heading for
each article, those indexed under the specific (child) heading would not also be indexed
under the broader (parent) heading. In other words, if you do not explode a term you will
lose references which have been indexed under the more specific (child) heading.
Subheadings:
Floating subheadings are terms which refine a MeSH subject heading search. They cover
topics such as diagnosis, drug therapy, economics, epidemiology, nursing, surgery and
therapy. The OVID Subheadings Screen enables you to select some or all of these, and to
view their scope notes. |
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COMBINING SETS: Selecting this icon takes you to the
Combination screen where you can select the searches you want to combine and the Boolean
operator to apply. Alternatively, it is often simpler to combine your searches by typing
"1 and 7" in the search box, which would have the effect of combing search
result 1 with search result 7 using the Boolean AND operator. |
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LIMITING SETS: The Limit screen offers a greater
range of limits than the simple set available at the bottom of the search screen. All of
your searches are displayed, and you can select which ones to limit.
- Age bands
- Sex
- Human or animal
- Language
- Publication types (e.g.,
clinical trial, review, randomized controlled trial, meta-analysis, practice guideline)
- Journal subsets
(particularly Abridged Index Medicus or Nursing Journals)
- Year of publication
- Latest update
NOTE - AIM journals:
core clinical medical journals indexed for Abridged Index Medicus most of which
will be available in a hospital library |
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I do not recommend using the Ovid Basic mode, as the Advanced
interface is not difficult and offers much more. |
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SELECTING ANOTHER DATABASE: You have the option to run
your search (or a close approximation) in other Ovid databases - the BMA MedlinePlus
offers you Embase, and CINAHL is available at Wycombe Hospital. |
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EXITING OVID: When you have finished your session it is
good form to log off from Ovid, rather than just breaking your internet connection. This
allows the system to free up resources for other users. |
Boolean Operators
Ovid offers the
three standard Boolean operators, OR, AND and NOT, as well as the adjacent operator, ADJ.
| OPERATOR |
COMMENT |
OR
e.g. (1 OR 2) |
Adds search sets together and eliminates duplicates
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AND
e.g. (1 AND 2) |
Finds articles common to both search sets
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NOT
e.g. (1 NOT 2) |
Excludes and item from the second set number
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ADJ
ADJn |
Finds words occurring next to one another. Entering a number between 1 and
99, immediately after the ADJ operator places a limit on the maximum number of other words
between the terms searched. ("pelvic inflammatory disease" ADJ20 infertility) |
Command line syntax
If you are confident
that you know the MeSH heading that you need, you can perform searches in one step using
command line syntax.
| Search |
Syntax |
Example |
| Exploding a MeSH term |
exp before MeSH term |
exp multiple sclerosis |
| Focus |
Asterisk * before MeSH term |
*multiple sclerosis |
| MeSH term + all subheadings |
Forward slash / after MeSH term |
multiple sclerosis/ |
| MeSH term + one or more
subheadings |
Forward slash / after MeSH term followed by two-letter codes |
multiple sclerosis/et,dt |
| Exploding a subheading
irrespective of the MeSH term |
.fs after two-letter subheading code |
et.fs = all articles on aetiology |
| Delete set |
..pg before set number |
..pg1 deletes set 1
..pg2-5 deletes sets 2 to 5
..pgall deletes all sets |
| Limit |
Limit n to xxxx |
Limit 1 to review
Limit 1 to yr=1998 |
You
can also call up Ovid tools such as Tree and Permuted Index.
| View |
Syntax |
Example |
| Permuted index |
ptx before single word, will find all MeSH terms containing the word |
ptx multiple |
| Tree |
tree before MeSH term, will show the Ovid Tree display for the term |
tree multiple sclerosis |
| Subheadings |
sh before MeSH term, will show you all of the subheadings relevant to your
MeSH term |
sh multiple sclerosis |
SDI - Automatic Search notification
With
SDI or "Selective Dissemination of Information" you can arrange for a search to
be run automatically every month, with E-mail notification of any changes from previous
months.
Using the most recent
(1997-) time period of the MEDLINE database, perform and save your search, choosing the
"Save search as an AutoAlert (SDI) Service" option as shown below.
Fig
1. Ovid SDI Service
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In the General Parameters section enter a name for the search in the box
provided, and a comment to remind you of the search's purpose. Enter your E-mail address,
and something sensible for the subject, so that you will be able to identify your search
easily, when you scan your E-mail.
Select the format of
the E-mail report such as including the search strategy, the format of the citation, and
the order in which the references are sorted (default is reverse chronological order, but
you can choose alphabetically by author, alphabetically by journal name, etc.).
You
will receive the SDI notification on a monthly basis, of new articles which your search
has picked up. |
