DWLresearch

  When you're doing a literature search there may be lots of variations of words you want to search on, to ensure you're finding all the different ways someone may have written about a topic. Truncation searching and using wildcards helps you to search for word variations without having to type in every single variations yourself. These techniques only work in specialist literature databases that support truncation or wildcards. Search engines such as Google and Google Scholar do not support these options. Some databases do automatically look for variations in spellings and the singular/plural of words, but you can ensure they are doing this by using the tips below: Truncation Searching If you want to search on the plural, singular and other variations of the same word you can use truncation: exercise* = will find exercise, exercises, exercising, exercised Do not truncate too early in a word – e.g. exer* = would find the above but also exercycle, exergonic, exertion, and other ...

Phrase searching Normally when you put two words into a database search it will find those two words anywhere in the title/abstract/keywords: It will do an AND search = diabetes AND mellitus If you want to force the database to do a phrase search then enclose it in “speech marks” “diabetes mellitus” = those words next to each other, in that order Most of the main literature databases we subscribe to at the University of Leicester support phrase searching using speech marks, as do the search engines Google and Google Scholar. However, Scopus treats phrases in "speech marks" as loose phrases, so to do an exact phrase search in Scopus use {curly brackets} around the phrase instead. Extra Tip: Make sure when typing in speech marks that you use the double speech mark symbol " rather than typing in two apostrophes. Proximity (Adjacency) Searching Finds one keyword within a specified number of words of the other, in any order: Diabetes ADJ4 “Type 2” = will find Diabetes withi...

 EThOs - e-theses online service A free database provided by the British Library which searches over 500,000 UK Doctoral Theses, including those from the University of Leicester. Conduct your search. Search results with a green open padlock symbol mean that the full text of the thesis is available for free download. Click on the result you are interested in. You should then see more details about the thesis, including an abstract. You might be given more than one option for downloading the full text PDF of the thesis - either from EThOS or from the Institution that awarded the PhD. In order to download from EThOS you need to create a free EThOS account. Not all theses included in EThOS are available as full text PDFs. Some will have restricted access and some may not have been digitised. Those with restricted access will have a brown dotted padlock symbol next to them and those that have not been digitised will have no padlock symbol. Click on a result for more details. You will cu...

Finding University of Leicester Theses Browse the theses in your Department If you want to look at previous theses within your Department or subject then choose the 'Research Archive' search on the library homepage and search on 'your department theses' e.g. geography theses: This will open the Leicester Research Archive - scroll down and you will see the Theses Collection for the Department: You can then browse the theses: If you would like to read or download a particular thesis - click on the link and scroll down to the PDF option: You will then be able to read or download the thesis unless it has an embargo in place, in which case the record will state there is an embargo: Search by keyword or author Go to the Leicester Research Archive homepage:  https://lra.le.ac.uk/ Use the search box in the top right hand corner. Finding UK Theses Try searching: EThOS - Electronic Theses Online System  which is availa...

Proximity (Adjacency) Searching vs Phrase Searching When you're searching literature databases you might want to find a phrase. The easiest way to do this is to put the phrase in "speech marks". E.g. "heart disease" This will find that exact phrase - with the words next to each other in that order. BUT... You may be interested in variations on that phrase e.g. heart disease, disease of the heart, diseases of the heart, diseases of the human heart. In that case it might be better to use a proximity/adjacency search - this allows you to find one keyword next to another. Or one keyword within a specified number of words of the other keyword. When using a proximity search the keywords can be in any order. Different Databases Use Different Proximity Operators In Ovid Medline : heart adj disease finds the word heart next to the word disease, in that order.    (This is the same as searching for the phrase, of course) heart adj2 disease fin...