American Chemical Society
Teaching Chemical Information:
Tips and Techniques
— August 1998 —
Search Strategies and Tactics
In addition to learning about the information tools students need to learn some search strategies and tactics.
Tactics
Keys to using various resources effectively
Examples
- Hill System for molecular formulas
- Dealing with chemical nomenclature
- Use synonym indexes (Merck Index has synonyms)
- Be aware of Permuted names (toluene, trinitro)
- Be aware of which tools use common names vs. IUPAC vs. CAS
Strategies
Strategies are overall approaches which can be applied to any extensive search problem
Examples:
- Choose the appropriate database for the job
- If you need information on medical uses of taxol use Medline, if you want to synthesize it; use CA
- Start with the easiest tools and work up
- If you can find a boiling point in the CRC Handbook, why use Beilstein?
- If you can find a synthesis in Organic Syntheses, why look in Chemical Abstracts?
- Find the keys which will unlock other tools.
- Easy sources for finding Registry Numbers
- Good synonym indexes
- Search for review articles
- Registry #'s & Beilstein references in CRC Handbook, Aldrich Catalog
- Synonyms (and CA names) in Merck Index
- Add the word “review” to your search strategy
- Use pearl growing or the iterative approach.
(Find something good, then build on it)
- Search the keywords or authors from that “good paper”
- Look up the bibliography and build on it
- Do citation searches on the “good paper”
- Ask someone who knows!
- A librarian
- An expert in the field