A database is a collection of records in which information about each document is stored. Each record is composed of fields containing specific piece of that information. The fields, their names and searchability are database specific. When you are searching, consider where your terms might be found. A search can be narrowed down by focusing it on the different fields of the record.
Common fields to focus a search on are:
Often databases provide a default combination of for example title, abstract and keyword fields. You can choose the search field on drop down menu or use field codes in command search.
An example of a record. You can open the record by clicking the title in the search result list. When you are searching information about a specific topic, the relevant fields are usually the title, abstract and the keywords. Which fields in this example contain the word glycerol? Scopus 27.7.2018
You might find it useful to restrict your search to only the title field
You can focus your search on specific fields also in Google Scholar.
In full text databases it is possible to search from the full contents of the books, articles and other documents. It is worth using a full text search for example when:
In this eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) -database the words motivation and learning have been searched from the database default search fileds (tite, abstract, keywords) and the search word storytelling (also story telling) from all text fields. The searh result is books about learning motivation where storytelling has been mentioned at least once. The database also provides a list of pages where the search terms appear more often (Most relevant pages). EBSCOhost 15.8.2018
