CHEM 184/284 (Chemical Literature) - Huber - Winter 2025: Lecture 12

Searching by Research Topic

 

• Searching for references by keyword in SciFinder is similar in many respects to searching in other scholarly databases like Web of Science. For instance:
  • You can combine terms with the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT and parentheses. Example: (oxidation OR reduction) NOT combustion
  • You can combine terms as a specific phrase using quotation marks, for esample "nuclear magnetic resonance"
  • You can use wildcard characters, asterisk * or question mark ? to generalize your searches.  For example:
    • photosynth* finds photosynthesis, photosyntheses, photocynthetic
    • alumin?um finds aluminum, aluminium
• You can add additional search fields, conecting them with AND, OR or NOT, including fields like author, organization, etc.
• SciFinder is also capable of handling natural language phrases, such as  oxidation of secondary alcohols to ketones. SciFinder-n will automatically do truncation and insert necessary connectors. Note that the results of a natural language search may not be identical to those of an equivalent Boolean search.
• However, there are also things which SciFinder does uniquely, such as:
  • In addition to titles and abstracts, keyword searches search indexer-selected keywords, CA concept headings and MeSH subject headings.
  • It automatically searches for CAS abbreviations when it encounters a word which could be abbreviated, and vice versa.
  • It automatically searches for some synonyms of common chemical terms. For example, searching for NMR will also find nuclear magnetic resonance. 
  • Most importantly, when you search a chemical name as a keyword, it will detect that it is a chemical name, and also search the CAS Registry Number for that substance, greatly increasing the comprehensiveness of the search. Each document record has in-depth substance indexing. See examples below, and more about CAS Registry Numbers in Lecture 13.

Keyword Searching Example

• Let's say I wanted to search for the topic, electrochemistry of nickel or cobalt phthalocyanines.
• , You might enter that exact phrase, but you can also use something like this, electrochem* AND (nickel OR ccobalt) AND phthalocyan*, using either the Boolean operators, and parentheses to group the terms.
• Note below how, as I start to type the phrase, SciFinder-n provides a drop-down autocomplete list of possiber terms.

• The list of terms suggests strongly that I might want to use the asterisk wildcard to get all the terms starting with electrochem*
• Here's the completed search phrase:

 

• Note that the drop-down list of terms does not appear as you add additional terms to the same line.  If you wish to verify your terms, you could add additional lines and add each set of synonymous terms on its own line. 
• Now I click the Search icon. After the sstem completes its search, I obtain the initial results set below.

 

• Note the following points about the reference answer set display above:
  • Search terms are highlighted..
  • SciFinder has retrieved a large answer set BUT note at the upper left that it has not displayed the full answer set. The "most relevant" answer set is 2,439 answers. If I click on the Load More Results button, it goes to 2,801.
  • SciFinder expects that the user will get large answer sets, and use the Relevance sort, and the Filter options to home in on the desired answers.
  • Note that a new Filter options has appeared:
    • Substance Role  This is because we have searched on one or more chemical substance terms. In the drop-down list, only roles pertaining to the substances which we searched on appear, and the numbers reflect how many answers have each role. Note, too, that a substance may be assigned more than one role in a given document record. Note that the substance roles displayed in the left-hand column are broad roles, e.g. Uses. If you click on the View All link the table of roles will include more specific roles, e.g. Analytical Reagent Use.
    • CAS Solutions - Shows which records also appear in CAS Analytical Methods and Formulus.
    • Formulation Purpose - Shows purposeses in formulations for the substances found, such as Coating materials and Drug delivery systems.
  • Below is the Concepts filter table for this answer set. This is a powerful refinement tool for my search

• Note how, unsurprisingly, there are many "electrochem" terms among the most common concepts.
• Note, too, how you may find related terms that you might want to consider to broaden or refocus your search, like cyclic voltammetry (an electrochemical technique) and metallaphthalocyanines.
• You may select as many of the concept headings as you like, then click the Apply button to filter your results to just those documents that have those concepts in their indexing. You may use the Search tab to help find relevant concepts when you have a long list. See example below. In this case, I searched electro* and then clicked the Select All on Page box to select them all at once.

 

• After applying, the Searched concepts above, and applying the Substance Role, Analytical Study, my answer set is narrowed to 261 answers. Below is the full document record for one of the answers.

• Note that all the keywords searched are highlighted, in title, abstract, keywords, concept headings and substance records.
• Note that in the substance records, the roles for each substance as they are given in the document appear. Note also, that both the general roles that appear in the Filters list (such as Analytical Study) and more specific roles appear. These more specific rolesdon't show up in the drop-down list of roles, but do show up in the table of roles when you click "Show all", and can be used to refine from there..
• Note that Metallopthalocyanines is highlighted in the concept headings, even though we didn't search it directly, SciFinder-n's built-in "smarts" searched for it anyway. Also note, that since it is a class of compounds, stubstance roles are applied to it as well as to specific substances.

CAS Lexicon

As mentioned in Lecture 10, CAS has taken the full list of CA Concept Headings and organized them in a hierarchical fashion, so that you can easily identify broader, narrower and related terms for your search.  

Let's say that I'm undertaking the same search that I did above, but want to use the CAS Lexicon to enhance my search. Starting with electrochemistry:

Clicking on Launch CAS Lexicon brings us to this screen"

As I type in electrochemistry, a drop-down menu of terms appears. Selecting electrochemistry and clicking Search Concept, I get:a scrollable list of possible preferred terms, from which I must select one.

Selecting Electrochemistry, I get a scrollable menu of broader, narrower and related terms,Some terms have scope ontes, describing the terms, indicated by the question mark icon.  Hover your cursor over the icon to see the scope note for tht term.

From the list of terms,  I may select the ones to add to my query, with Add Terms: 

Note that I can clear terms from the query and redo them. When I'm ready, I click the search icon.

If I now wanted to use the Lexicon to explore other terms, like phthalocyanine, I might wish to save my electrochemistry answer set (or selected portions thereof) so that I could later combine it with a phthalocyanine search.  Alternatively, I could just use the Lexicon to suggest alternative  terms, and enter them by hand into a keyword search.

© 2025 Charles F. Huber

This work by Charles F. Huber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at guides.library.ucsb.edu

Screenshots of SciFinder-n are copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society and are used under fair use for educational purposes only.