Part 2: Getting started (continued)

B. The main search page

This is how the screen looks before you've done a search:

Ovid MEDLINE(R)

Let's take a closer look at each part of the screen.

The top of the screen

This just reminds you what database you're in (and gives you access to online Help):

Ovid MEDLINE(R)

The icons

There are icons for various features -- we 'll look at the most important ones in this tutorial. Notice that the "Combine" and "Limit" icons are pale grey, which means we can't click them because we haven't done any searches yet:

icons

The Search History

This shows our previous searches -- it's blank now because we haven't done any yet:

Search History

Later, after we've done a search, it will look like this:

Search History

This shows we searched for the Subject Heading Sleep Bruxism and found 60 articles. The "/" after the Subject Heading means that we included all subheadings (subheadings will be explained later).

Clicking will take us down the page to the first ten results of our search:

Results of your search

After we've done two searches, the Search History will look like this:

This still shows our first search (# 1), but it also shows we did a second search, for the Subject Heading Occlusal Splints, and included all subheadings, and got 738 results. We can see the results of either search by clicking the button next to it.

The search box

This is where we'll enter our search term (more about this later...).

Enter Keyword or phrase:

The most popular "Limit" options

Finally, there are some check boxes for limiting our search, if we want:

Limit to:

Next:

Test yourself! (This mini quiz has 3 questions.)
Part 2: Getting started
C. Mini quiz