ETOH Web Guide

ETOH Search Guide

Searching ETOH

Choosing a Search Screen
Selecting a Search Screen
Submitting a Search
Selecting a Display Format

Effective Searching

Words to Avoid
Using Boolean Operators Between Fields
Using Boolean Operators Within a Field
Proximity Searching
How the Search Engine Processes Criteria
Wildcard Searching
Limiting by Dates
Limiting by Publication Types
Searching by Author

Displaying Search Results

Sorting Search Results
Saving Search Results
Printing Search Results

About ETOH

Included in ETOH are abstracts and bibliographic references to journal articles, books, dissertation abstracts, conference papers and proceedings, reports and studies, and chapters in edited works. ETOH's scope reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the alcohol research field. The range of subject areas contained in ETOH includes:

medicine
biochemistry
psychology
psychiatry
epidemiology

sociology
anthropology
treatment
prevention
education

accidents and safety
legislation
criminal justice
public policy
health services research

The ETOH database is indexed with vocabulary from the Alcohol and Other Drug Thesaurus: A Guide to Concepts and Terminology in Substance Abuse and Addiction (AOD Thesaurus), Third Edition. More than 5,000 terms in the AOD Thesaurus are used as ETOH descriptors.

PART I: Searching ETOH

This section of the Guide covers four fundamental steps that must be taken during the course of a search on the ETOH Web site. These basic steps are: 1) choosing a search screen, 2) selecting search terms, 3) submitting a search, and 4) displaying search results.

Steps to Searching ETOH: Step One — Choosing a Search Screen

Users can select one of two search screens: the Basic Search Screen or the Advanced Search Screen. The Basic Search allows you to search in the following fields: Author, Title, Source, Abstract, Descriptor, and Year. The Advanced Search allows you to search in the Accession Number, Publication Type, Language, and Funding Source fields in addition to those fields searched in the Basic Search.

Steps to Searching ETOH: Step Two — Selecting a Search Term

Users can search on single words, on phrases, or on terms selected from the AOD Thesaurus. A “word” is a single word such as liver, adolescent, etc. A “phrase” is a combination of words such as binge drinking, fetal alcohol syndrome, etc. A copy of the AOD Thesaurus is available on the Web site to aid in the selection of terms. Terms from the Thesaurus can be cut and pasted directly into ETOH.

Instructions on how to refine your search by avoiding certain words, using Boolean operators, proximity searching, and wildcards, and on how to limit search using dates, publication types and author names can be found in Part Two of the Search Guide — Effective Searching.

Steps to Searching ETOH: Step Three — Submitting a Search

After entering the search terms in their appropriate fields, find and click the Submit button at the bottom of the screen.

Steps to Searching ETOH: Step Four — Selecting a Display Format

The results of a search are displayed in a default report form (the checkbox form). Using this form, select only the records you want and click the Submit Edits button to view the selected records. The records are displayed using the Main Form. To view the records in the longer format that includes abstracts and descriptors, choose Full Form from the drop-down box at the top of the screen.

PART II: Effective Searching

In order to search ETOH effectively, it will help to know: which words to avoid; how to use Boolean operators between fields; how to use Boolean operators within a field; the order in which the search engine processes search criteria; how to perform proximity searches; how to use wildcards; how to search by dates; and how to find specific authors.

Words To Avoid

There are certain words that appear several times in the majority of the database records; these should be avoided because they cause the server to slow down significantly.

alcohol
alcoholic(s)
alcoholism
AODE
study
treatment
results
drinking
effect(s)
patients
abuse
consumption
research
problems

Using Boolean Operators Between Fields

Often, searching on a single word in one field or searching on a word that is too general in scope will return results that are not entirely useful. To make a search more effective, the results must be narrowed. This is accomplished through the use of Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT), proximity operators (within or precedes), and comparison or range operators (greater than, less then, equal to, etc.). One method of narrowing a search is to use more than one search prompt. Notice that each prompt in the search screen has a drop-down box containing a choice of three operators: AND, OR, and NOT. These operators are called Boolean operators. The default Boolean operator that appears next to each search prompt is AND.

By selecting the desired Boolean operator and typing an additional word or phrase in another search prompt, your search will be narrowed. For instance, a search on the phrase alcohol dehydrogenase can result in more than 400 records found. However, by entering 1995 in the Year field, for example, the total number of records found can be reduced to approximately 40 records, all published in 1995.

The system will process a search in the order the prompts appear on the screen. For example, in the sample search shown below, the system first finds all the records with alcohol dehydrogenase in the descriptor field, and then narrows the results by year.

Using Boolean Operators Within a Field

Use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT is not limited to the drop-down box. Boolean operators can be used for more powerful searching within one field. To use Boolean operators within a field, use the following symbols. Do not use the actual words!

AND = & (Ampersand)
OR = / (Slash)
NOT = ! (Exclamation Mark)

For instance, to search for records that contain blood cells AND membrane channel in the descriptor fields, type blood cells & membrane channel at the Descriptor prompt.

Or, to search for records with the authors Smith OR Altman, type Smith / Altman at the Author prompt.

Finally, to find records that contain psychotherapy but NOT pharmacotherapy in the Title field, type psychotherapy ! pharmacotherapy at the Title prompt.

Note: Typing a space between search terms and operators will not affect search results. Such use of spaces is strictly the user's preference.

How the Search Engine Processes Search Criteria

Within a field, search criteria are evaluated from left to right. For example, a search in the Descriptors field on beer / wine & cardiovascular system will find records that contain the concepts beer and cardiovascular system or wine and cardiovascular system. A search on beer & wine / cardiovascular system will find records that contain both the concepts beer and wine, or just cardiovascular system.

Using parentheses within the field can change the order that the search engine processes the criteria. For example, a search on beer / wine & cardiovascular system / heart disorder will find records containing the concepts wine and cardiovascular system, beer and cardiovascular system, plus any documents containing the concept heart disorder. However, with parentheses, the search on (beer / wine) & (cardiovascular system / heart disorder) will find records containing the concepts beer and cardiovascular system, beer and heart disorder, wine and cardiovascular system, and wine and heart disorder.

Between fields, search criteria are evaluated from left to right and from top to bottom. If all of the search prompts have the Boolean operator AND in the drop-down boxes, the results of a search are the same regardless of the evaluation order. The evaluation order only matters if the operators OR or NOT are used in the drop-down boxes.

Performing Proximity Searches

Another way to narrow a search is by using proximity operators. This database provides two powerful proximity operators: Wn and Pn (where n is any number). Wn stands for Within n number of words, and Pn stands for Precedes by no more than n number of words.

For example, to find all records where rehabilitation falls within four words of treatment in the title field, type rehabilitation W4 treatment.

Using Wildcards

A wildcard is a special character (also known as a truncation symbol) that can be used to search for words or phrases beginning with specific characters. The wildcard used with ETOH searches is the asterisk (*).

For example, a search in the Descriptors field on phosphat* will return records that contain the character string "phosphat". The records found might contain phosphatases, phosphates, phosphatidic, phoshatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine, etc. in the Descriptors field.

Note: Care should be taken when using wildcards. Using wildcards with single letters or short or common word stems should be avoided. Such searches increase processing time and will result in the retrieval of irrelevant items.

Limiting on Dates

Year of publication can be searched with range operators. The following range operators are available:

Operator	Meaning
=	Exact match
>	Greater than
>=	Greater than or equal to
<	Less than
<=	Less than or equal to
:	Through

For example, to search for records that fall between two years, enter 1992:1993.

Or, to find records published after 1989, enter 1989.

Limiting on Publication Types

In order to limit by type of publication, refer to the list below and select the single most appropriate category provided and enter this in the publication type field.

book, monograph
chapter
journal article
report, program plan
magazine article, periodical
proceedings, symposia
conference paper, address
hearings
law, legislation
newsletter
announcement, memorandum, letter, editorial
abstract (31)

Finding Specific Authors

Author names appear in various ways throughout the ETOH database. Though the standard since 1986 is to enter names as last name and first and middle initial (for example, "Thomas F. Babor" is entered as Babor T F), author names have previously been entered as they appeared in the original document. To use the same example, "Thomas F. Babor" could be found as Babor T, Babor T F, Babor Thomas, Babor Thomas F, etc.

When searching records for specific authors, it is recommended that you first search on the last name alone — e.g., to find records with the Author Babor, enter Babor.

However, if such a search returns too many unwanted records, then you should use a range search. For example, Smith J : Smith Jz will find all of the authors with the last name of Smith and a first name starting with the letter J.

Such range searches can be narrowed further. For example, Smith Joa : Smith Joz will find all authors with the last name of Smith and first name starting with Jo.

Note: Using wildcards when searching for a specific author (e.g., searching in Smith J*) is not recommended.