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Hi, I’m Denise Bennett, an Engineering Librarian at UF’s Marston Science Library.
I’ll show you how to search Compendex for engineering journal articles.
From the ENC 3254 Professional Communication for Engineers guide, select the Journal Articles tab.
This page lists many excellent databases for finding journal articles.
We will look at Compendex, also called Engineering Index, because it is the best single database for all majors in Engineering.
Compendex is one of the databases available on the Engineering Village platform.
To search only Compendex, uncheck the boxes for Inspec and Referex.
When you search one database at a time, you’ll have more functionality.
In Compendex only, search for mobile robots.
Sometimes, your keywords retrieve too many results.
Wow, over 42,000 articles. How can we let the software help us limit to the best ones?
One strategy is to add a term in the box under Refine Results. Here, we’ll type in control.
By adding a term, we have limited our results by almost half.
Another strategy, if you aren’t sure what keywords to use,
is to look at the limit options in the left column.
You’ll find tags in the “Controlled vocabulary” section;
keep clicking on the “view more” link as desired
to see enough of the tag options.
Either you’ll see ideas for keywords you can type in the Refine box…
Or you can check as many of the tags as you like…
… and then scroll back up to the top of the column.
You can then “limit to” the tags you checked, or you can “exclude” them.
Sometimes, it’s easier to select the tags you don’t want to see in your results.
Again, the number of articles has dropped.
You may choose additional limits, such as Journal Article or Language of the full text.
You may sort your results to order them more effectively, such as newest first.
Another challenge is when you get too few results.
Search for fracking. It’s a hot topic, so …
… why do you get a small number of results? And why don’t the results seem very research- oriented?
When this happens, an efficient strategy is to find at least one decent citation.
In most databases, click on the article title,
but in Compendex click on the
Detailed link…
… to see the tags
that have been assigned to the paper.
You can usually spot a spelling problem or find better keywords this way.
In this case,
hydraulic fracturing
is a tag
in the best of the fracking results.
You may click on the linked tag
to redirect your search.
975 hits sounds more appropriate for the topic, and the article titles look more research-oriented.
You may also click on the Search button and retype the better keywords to make sure you’re picking up all the tags.
Then you can use the filters in the left column
to refine your results.
If you know how to frame your keywords logically,
you may type your complete string
on the initial search screen.
To reuse or recall a previous set of results,
look at the Search History
at the bottom of the Search screen.
You may re-select or logically combine
your earlier results from the session.
OK, so you’ve found some good-looking citations, but where do you get the full text?
In Compendex, you may have 2 options for getting the full text of an article.
Sometimes, the “full text” button works great. But if you get a prompt to type a login or a credit card number …
… go back to Compendex and click the orange- and-blue “Find it @ UF” button instead.
With most journals, you’ll be taken to the full text of the article.
Some articles are available in both an html version that you can read on the screen…
… and also a PDF version that is best if you want to print or save the article.
If the Find it@UF button doesn’t lead directly to the full text, you should see a screen with options.
First follow a link to Find a print copy in the UF Libraries’ catalog.
If that is not successful, return and submit an Interlibrary Loan request.
We’ll find a library that will scan and send a copy.
How do you manage the good results?
As you identify articles that look appropriate for your topic, mark their check boxes.
After you mark your favorite articles on a page,
you may then email or print the citations so you can reuse them easily.
For the ultimate efficiency in managing your citations, choose Download …
… and select the RefWorks button.
We’ll learn how to store, manage, and add style to your references or citations in the RefWorks video.
We’ve only scratched the surface of the functionality in Compendex.
For more tips on efficient power searching in Compendex,
click on Search Tips in the top right corner.
Remember, you’ll find links to many other excellent databases and indexes to articles in engineering on each course guide or subject guide.
They all support functions similar to what we’ve seen in Compendex.