Instructions

You should see the WebPALS Library Resource selection page in the frame to your right. To interact with the database you must click in the right hand frame. If you cannot remember what the PALS buttons do, please consult the PALS Button Chart. You can change the size of the left hand frame by placing your cursor on the divider bar. Click and hold your left mouse button and drag the bar to the right or left.

To begin your search, click on the Selection Button Health Index option and make sure that the where: option is set to Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Then press the Go button. If you are using this Tutorial from campus, you should now be looking at the search screen for the Health Index. (If you are using this Tutorial from home, you will now see a screen prompting you for your barcode number and password. Your barcode number is the one that the library put on the back of your student ID and starts with 20204. Enter this barcode without any spaces. Your password is your last name. You must enter this information because PALS needs to know that you are an authorized user. The library pays about $20,000 every year for these databases and only valid MCTC students, faculty and staff are allowed to use the system). Click on the About This Resource button to learn more about the Health Index. Press your browser's Back button to return to the search screen.

1) Author Searching

You are able to search for periodical articles by author in the Health Index. Select the Selection Button Author search option and click in the for what: box. Now type fauci anthony (remember PALS ignores case) and press the Go button. PALS should have found about 30 articles that matched your search. Look closely at the results. The date of publication appears first, followed by the title of the article, and then the title of the journal. Notice the * next to some of the dates. This indicates that the full text of the article is in the database. Take a look at the article The AIDS epidemic: considerations for the 21s, published in 1999, by clicking on the item number.

The first field in the record is the Library: field. This tells you which library's holdings you are searching. You should see "Minneapolis Comm & Tech" in this field. This indicates that the holdings for Minneapolis Community & Technical College Library will be displayed in the Location field. The next field is the Location: field which tells you if the library owns or does not own the periodical. In this case, you see that our library has subscribed to the periodical since 1989. The Citation: field tells you the name of the periodical as well as publication information. The name of this periodical is The New England Journal of Medicine, the article is from the September 30, 1999 edition, which is volume 341, number 4, and the article starts on page p1046 and is (5) pages in length. The Title: field displays the title of the periodical article. The article title in this record is: The AIDS epidemic: considerations for the 21st century.. The Abstract: field summarizes the article and helps you better understand what the article is about.

Look at the top of the page. The View Article button does not appear. This means that the article is not available online and you must retrieve the print issue of this periodical.

Press the Results List button now and go back to your results list. You could now look at other periodical articles.

Use the far right scroll bar and go to the bottom of the WebPALS page. Press the New Search button to perform a new search.

2) Title Searching

There are two types of title searches that you can do. If you know the exact title of the article, you can choose the Title, exact option. If you choose this option, you need to type in the complete title, omitting any leading article. Title, exact is the most precise title search. However, if you cannot remember the exact title of the article you must choose the Title, keyword option. When you choose this option PALS searches for those article titles in the database that include the keywords you entered. You may get more than one work matching your search.

Let's try a Title, keyword search. We will pretend that you are searching for articles about the use of acupuncture in substance abuse treatment. You have a specific article in mind, but you cannot remember the exact title or the author. You do remember that the words Acupuncture, Substance, and Abuse are in the title. So select the Selection Button Title, keyword option on the PALS search screen to your right. Then click in the for what: box and type acupuncture substance abuse and press the Go button.

PALS should have located about 3 articles. You see the article that you are looking for, it is Acupuncture may be valuable in substance abus published in 2000. Click on the blue item number to see the full citation. The article is from the February 2000 issue of The Brown University Digest of Addiction Theory and Application, which is volume 19, issue number 2. The article is 2 pages long. Look up at the top of the record. See the View Article button? This means that you can view the full text of the article online. You also see from the Location: field that MCTC subscribed to this journal from 1990-1996. However, since you want to see the February 2000 issue you must press the View Article button to view the article.

Now lets move on to keyword and subject searching. Press the New Search button at the bottom of the page.

3) Keyword, Subject and Boolean Searching

Most of the time when you search for information, you want to locate material on a specific topic. The more specific you can be about your topic, the more efficient you will be when searching the database. If you come to the database with a very broad undefined topic, you will probably find too much information. For example, if you come to this database with the idea of locating information on genetics, but have not defined your topic further, you will locate more information than you want. Let's give it a try. Make sure the Selection Button Keyword option is checked, and enter the word breast cancer in the for what: box. Press the Go button. You should have located about 5412 records. This is too many articles. You need to think more about your topic and how you want to narrow it down. To help you think through your topic, you can look at and print off our Defining Your Research Topic Worksheet.

I am going to suggest another way to approach this topic. Because I took the time to really think about my topic, I have come up with a much more specific idea of what I want. I have formulated my research topic in the form of a question. I want to answer the question: "Do women who use postmenopausal estrogen-progestin therapy have a higher risk of getting breast cancer?"

Press your browser's Back button to return to the search screen. Now look at the question. We want to pull out keywords to search the database. The keywords that I would pull out are estrogen, progestin, breast, and cancer. I am choosing these 4 words because PALS only allows up to four words in a Keyword search. "Postmenopausal" would be another good word to use. Type the following in the for what: box: estrogen progestin breast cancer. This tells PALS to do a keyword search and to locate only those records that contain all the words. By not putting any boolean operators between the words PALS defaults to using AND between the words. This search actually looks for estrogen AND progestin AND breast AND cancer. Press the Go button.

You should have located about 13 articles. Locate the article Estrogen-Progestin Increases Breast Cancer Ri published in 2000. Click item on the number and take a look at the record. This looks like a good article for our topic. It is a clinical study and is available full-text online. Notice the subject headings. There is a heading for Breast cancer--Risk factors. If you were to press the subject link, you would locate all the other articles in the database that also have the subject heading. This subject heading is broader than our research topic, but you would find articles that deal with all types of breast cancer risk factors. You could also search for articles with the subject heading Progestational hormones--Health aspects, or Estrogen--Health aspects. Click on the Progestational hormones--Health aspects link. You should locate about 14 articles. Take a look at the titles. Notice from the titles that they all deal with some form of hormone treatment, but many deal with topics other than breast cancer. Click on some of the item numbers and notice that all the articles have the subject heading Progestational hormones--Health aspects.

In the subject headings listed above you notice that they all contains words separated by a double dash - -. The word or words before the dash is the subject heading. The word or words after the dash is sub-heading. So, for example, Estrogen is the subject heading and Health aspects is a sub-heading. Once you know the different sub-headings you can combine them with different subject headings to come up with different search results. For example, rather than searching for Estrogen--Health aspects let's try doing a search for the risk factors related to estrogen. You know that "Risk factors" is an authorized sub-heading because it was included in the subject heading Breast cancer--Risk factors listed above.

So go to the bottom of the right frame and press the New Search button at the bottom of the page. Choose the Selection Button Subject Heading, exact and type estrogen risk factors in the for what: box. Press the Go button. You should have located only 1 article. This means that this is the only article in the database with this exact subject heading and sub-heading.

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