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PhAST Track Information Skills Module: Second Step

Think About It

You need to think about:

VOCABULARY

Computers are giant calculators.  They don't know what words mean, so they can't really find other words or ideas that mean the same thing.  You need to tell them exactly which WORDS to look for.

You also need to ask:

  • Who might have written about this? 
  • What country are they from, and what do they call this in that country?  How do they spell it?

With drugs, you also need to think about:

  • The drug name in different countries
  • The scientific names for the active ingredients
  • The different brand names
  • Different terms for the
    • Drug actions
    • Pharacologic classes or categories
    • Symptoms being address by the drug

Synonyms and Related Terms

Identify possible synonyms

Synonyms are words that have the same meaning. Synonyms can be:

  • Different spellings of the same word eg. pediatrics OR paediatrics
  • Same meanings but a different word eg. paracetamol OR acetaminophen
  • The singular/plural form or different endings of the same word eg. splint OR splints OR splinting
  • Abbreviations eg. CVA OR cerebral vascular accident

To identify relevant synonyms use:

  • Drug information databases
  • Thesauri
  • Dictionaries (JCU has an online dictionary collection available via Credo)
  • Encyclopedias
  • Talk to other people (lecturers, tutors, peer group)

Did you notice:

The OR used to link synonyms is in capitals.  This helps the database or search engine to know you are using it as a command, rather than a word.

Learn more about synonyms
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    Truncation and Phrases

    Identify truncation and phrase searching opportunities

    Truncation

    Uses a symbol (usually the asterisk *) to find different variations of the same word stem:

    • Therap* would find therapy, therapies and therapeutic 
    • Child* would find child, childs, children, childhood and childers
    • Rehab* would find rehab, rehabilitate, rehabilitated and rehabilitation

    Phrase searching

    When there is a concept that is a phrase, we use inverted commas ("  " ) to stop the words from being separated:

    • "Evidence based"
    • "physical therapy"
    • "physician assistant"
    • "World Health Organisation"

    Learn more about truncation and phrase searching
    (takes you away from this guide)

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