Now you should be looking at a basic search area that looks like this:
Keyword and Subject Descriptor Searching
To start searching, go ahead and type the word "dogs" in the keyword search box, and then click the "Search" button. Ignore any of the limiting options for now. When you do this, your search should retrieve 35 tables, with tables 1 - 25 being displayed.
Skim through these first 25 results. You may be surprise to see tables on "Public Assessment Of The Use Of Dogs And Chimpanzees In Scientific Research, By Selected Characteristics: 1988-99" (result #9) and "Length Of Major Streams 20 Miles Or Longer [Oklahoma, Arranged By County]" (result #25). Obviously, searching the term "dog" retrieves both items related to actual dogs and items that are unrelated. Assuming that we are still trying to find statistics on comparing the ownership rates of cats versus dogs, we may need to do use some better keywords because none of the first 25 results look promising (actually, results 31 and 32 are what we want, but we will search again in hopes of receiving better results).
(NOTE: You may notice that all of the PowerTables results retrieve the full-text of the tables. Searching Abstracts [next page in the tutorial] will retrieve full-text as well as abstracts from other statistical resources.)
Since we are comparing cats and dogs, a better search would be to add cats to our search. At the bottom of the list of results, there is a "Focus" option:
By adding cats to the search, you are changing the search into a Boolean search, structured like: dogs AND cats. Go ahead and click the "FOCUS" button after typing "cats" into the search box. When I did this, I retrieved 13 results, with the tables that I am looking for at #10 and #11. Go ahead and click on "Go to table" for result #11 (Household Pet Ownership: 1996, Issued By: Bureau of Census, Publication Date: 2000), and you should be looking at the following table:
There are many things that you can do when you find a table that you find to be useful. First, you can get all of the publication information and find out the source of the information (In this case, the table comes from the Statistical Abstract of the U.S.: 2000 page 256[click on More Info.... for more publication information]). If you click on the "Find More Like This" icon near the top of the page, you will be able to search for related tables through searching selected Statistical Universe subject descriptors. In addition, you can download this table as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet by clicking on the "Alternate Form: (XLS 8K)" link near the bottom of the page.
Go back to the basic search area (see above for a picture of the page), as there are many more features of basic searching to be discussed!
If you are having a difficult time figuring out good keywords to use in searching this database, you can always click on the "Subject List" option next to where you enter your keywords. This will bring you to a searchable listing of subject descriptors that Statistical Universe uses when categorizing tables. If we knew ahead of time that our ideal dogs and cats table had "Families and households," "Pets" and "Veterinary medicine" as its descriptors, we would have had an easier time of searching.
There are also MANY other ways of constructing a search so that you get better results. Lexis-Nexis is known for allowing sophisticated search strategies in its databases, and Statistical Abstracts is no exception. Reading through the advice under "Tips" is literally just the "Tip" of the keyword searching iceberg! The best explanation of all of the possible keyword searching strategies comes from the University of Michigan's Documents Center. If you click on http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/statuniv.html, and then click on the "Keyword" link under "Searching," you will find a wonderful table featuring keyword searching options. Using options such as: dog! w/5 cat! may be "overkill" for our example (for the record, this search retrieves 13 results, the same as our basic dogs AND cats search). Here is an official breakdown of acceptable searching strategies (Note: it takes a lot of time to become proficient in using some of these strategies. Stick to simple Boolean searches unless you really need to get more complex!):
Limiting by using "Breakdowns"
Obviously, Statistical Abstracts covers more than statistics on dog and cat ownership. Also, there are not that many tables featuring statistics on pets. However, a search of the word "abortion" retrieves 93 results. If you are writing a paper on comparing abortion rates in states (New York versus Maine) or by race (African American versus Hispanic) or by income (wealthy versus poor), you can use the limiting options to help limit your results. Limiting a keyword search on "abortion" by checking the box on "income" produces two results. Go ahead and do this search, and then do another keyword search on "abortion" and limit it to a field of your choice. What results did you get? As you can see, using a single keyword in conjunction with a Geographic, Demographic, Economic, or Frequency of Data limitation can be quite useful. A common mistake that people make when using breakdown limiters is selecting too many options, and they do not retrieve any results. A rule of thumb is to start out with one or two breakdowns that you find to be relevant, and search from there. You can always add more as needed.
Limiting by Date
In addition to narrowing your search using the given "Breakdowns", you can limit your search by date. If you are only interested in recent data, you can click on the menu arrow to select how recent you want your data.
Using this option can really help to cut down on results that you would find irrelevant. For instance, if you are searching for GDP and Canada before limiting the date, you will retrieve 69 results. If you limit the date to "Previous year," only 17 results are retrieved. Go ahead and do this keyword search: automobile AND production. How many results did you retrieve? How many results do you get if you limit the date to "Previous two years?"
Conclusion
Searching PowerTools can be relatively simple, but you can get quite sophisticated if you like. The key to searching in any database is to keep at it! If you do not succeed, try revising your search to either narrow or expand your results. Research is a process, and the more research you do, your researching skills will improve. That is not to say that novice users should only use basic search tools like PowerTables. Instead, almost all levels of researcher can and should make use of advanced search options when possible. In the next step of the tutorial, we will examine how to search Statistical Universe's Abstracts.
Click Here to Return to the First Page!
(David M. Oldenkamp, Syracuse University Library. Modified 3 March 2002)