When you log in with your University of Oulu user ID, you have access to electronic resources also from outside the University of Oulu network.
The topic being searched is divided into sections which are described with search terms. Common search terms are the central concepts of the problem, synonyms and foreign language equivalents for the concepts, and related, broader and narrower terms.
1. Truncation of the search terms allows the programme to include conjugated forms of the word. Truncation symbol in foreign databases and in Oula is asterisk (*).
2. The phrases (adjacent words) are normally written using quotation marks.
3. Boolean operator OR looks for the references which contain either search term A or B or both of them. The operator OR is used, for example, when connecting synonyms and combining broader and narrower terms.
4. Boolean operator AND looks for the references which contain both search terms A and B. The AND operator is used when, for example, you want to combine two subject areas.
("non-verbal communication" OR gesture*)
AND
(emotion* OR feeling*)
In a Free Text Search, the search terms can be chosen freely, and the search in a database can be focused on all searchable fields of the record, even on the full text in full-text databases. In addition to natural language, everyday language, professional vocabulary and proper names, terms found from thesauruses can be used in a Free Text Search. When focused on all search fields, a Free Text Search can produce a large search result containing also irrelevant references.
When searching for information on a particular topic with a Free Text Search, in general it is advisable to limit the search to the most important fields from the point of view of the subject matter, i.e. the title, abstract and descriptor fields.
Useful tools to get familiar with the concepts and terminology of the research field are Wikipedia articles, journal articles, reference works, handbooks, dictionaries, thesauruses etc.
