Brief 3
Climate change, ecosystem services, and South Australian Apples
Prepared by Mick Draper August 2008
Books
Use the Uni of Adelaide Library Catalogue to find books on this topic. If you find the books you want are on loan, you can make a request to recall the book, but even better would be to tell your lecturer who will then contact me to have the book placed in the Reserve Collection.
Journal Articles
I'm assuming that you have read the
Library tutorial for science, and have a basic understanding of how to use electronic databases to find journal articles (covered in section 5 of the tutorial). If you haven't looked at this tutorial start your search for information by working through this now.
Before you use a database you should think about what you will search.
What are the main concepts in this question?
Write them down.
| climate change |
ecosystem services |
adelaide hills |
apples |
Chances are that you won't find any articles on this topic.
It might be better to break up your search into two parts.
The first part could be on climate change, ecosystem services and South Australia
The second part could cover climate change, ecosystem services and apples
Then you'd have the job of putting together what you find out.
Begin with the South Australian search.
Under each of the main concepts write down any synonyms or alternative terms you could use in your search.
| climate change |
ecosystem services |
south australia |
| global warming |
natural systems |
south australian |
| greenhouse effect |
|
south australia's |
| |
|
adelaide |
Are there other terms you'd like to add to this grid.
What about adding terms like soil moisture, rainfall, temperature etc in the middle column?
When you've finished this grid you should have made a pretty good start on getting the search language right for this part of your search.
Now you need to make sure that your search logic is correct.
The logic will sometimes be determined by the database you choose to search.
Your choice of database will be important.
Start with CAB Abstracts which has citations of articles on ecology and on agriculture.
Logic
Join the terms that are in the same column of your logic grid with OR logic.
This means that your search will find for example, citations that include
climate change or global warming or greenhouse effect
Truncation
You can save yourself a bit of typing by using the truncation symbol *
Instead of searching for
south australia or south australian or south australia's
you can use south australia*
Searching for Phrases
Searching for phrases will make your searches more specific.
Phrases need to be enclosed in double quotes
e.g. searching for "south australia*" will find the phrases south australia or south australian etc
whereas a search for south australia* will find citations that have south and australia or australian etc together but not necessarily as a phrase. Using phrase search will focus your search.
So now your logic grid will look something like this.
| "climate change*" |
"ecosystem services" |
"south australia*" |
| "global warming" |
"natural systems" |
adelaide* |
| "greenhouse effect*" |
plus any other terms you add here |
|
You can get access to CAB Abstracts by clicking on the Databases tab on the Library Home.
Next click on the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology link.
Scroll down and click on CAB Abstracts
Enter your search terms from the first column into the top search for box, remembering to use or logic.
Enter the terms from your second column into the second search for box,
but remember to change Author in the in box to Topic.
Type the term(s) from your third column into the third Search for box and change Publication Name to Topic.
Is it worth considering some broader search terms here such as austral* or "souther hemisphere" more general searc
Click on the Search button.
Click on Check fulltext options to see if the Library has a copy of the document.
If this says it isn't available check in the Catalogue to make sure.
Click on the title of a citation to view the full record including the abstract.
Click on the number after Cited by to see citations of those articles that cite this one.
Click on the number after References to view the references cited by this article
Clicking on Related References will find all the citations in the database that share at least one or these 13 references.
The second part of your search has to do with apples.
What are the possible effects of climate change on apples.
You can just substitute apple* (and perhaps its genus) in your third search box,
or you could search using just the first search box and apple* etc
Other Databases on the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology list
ANR Index
which will find
SA Goyder Line moving south Source: Australian Farm Journal, 2006-04, 16 (2), p8-9.
Biosis Previews
GeoBase
Scopus
If you need more help contact Mick Draper, but be warned that I will ask you if you have read the Library tutorial for Science, and what you have done to search for articles.
