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TUTORIAL (10-15 minutes) | |
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Go the NCBI Home page (www.ncbi.nih.gov). In the image to the left, the link to the Bookshelf is circled. Click on this link. |
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The Bookshelf search page appears as in the image
to the left. Scroll down the page. The full text of all the books which
appear in the list are available online. Any topic included in these books
can be searched for using Entrez.
Click on the "Preview/Index" tab.
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The Preview/Index page appears as shown in the
image to the left. This page allows a user to preview the number of hits
which a query will generate without actually doing the search and examining
the output.
Type "sickle cell anemia" in the search box and click on "Preview". As of Feb. 1, 2006 this search returns 241 hits. This is more than can be conveniently evaluated by inspection, so it is desirable to reduce the number of hits by making the search more specific. To the search term "sickle cell anemia", add AND human", as shown in the image to the left. Click on "Preview" again. As of Feb. 1, 2006 this search returns only 40 hits. Click on the link to list these 40 hits.
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The next screen shows the books which have references
to human Sickle Cell Anemia, and also lists the number of hits in each
book. As of Feb. 1, 2006 there were 7 hits in "Introduction to Genetic
Analysis" by Griffiths et.al.
Click on the link to list these 7 hits. |
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The 7 hits are listed as shown in the image to
the left. There is a checkbox next to each hit. Click on the check box
next to the second hit ("lethal alleles").
Now go to the "Send to" pull-down menu. Select "Clipboard". This will place reference 2 on the Clipboard page. Notice that when the screen refreshes, the check is gone but the number of the reference is now displayed in green. This allows the user to keep track of which references have been sent tot eh Clipboard, and which have not.
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Return to the page which lists the 40 hits. Evaluate
each of these hits, and send to the Clipboard those which are most likely
to provide information on b
Globin variants, abnormal function, and the molecular basis of Sickle Cell
Anemia.
Click on the "Clipboard" tab. The Clipboard page now appears as shown in the image to the left. Only the references which were sent to the Clipboard from the hits list should be listed. |
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Go to the "Send to" pull-down menu. Select "Text".
This will create a text file of the references. The text file can be saved
to a disk and printed. Therefore it becomes very quick and easy to create
a relevant bibliography.
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Click on the "Details" tab. A screen
like the one to the left will appear. This shows exactly how the search
terms were interpreted by the Entrez search engine.
In the present case there is little scope for confusion. With larger and more complex searches however, this page can be very useful to ensure that the proper search is actually being done. |
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Click on the "History" tab. A screen
like the one to the left will appear. This screen lists all the searches
which have been done.
This feature is convenient for combining two previous searches. In another example, "sickle cell anemia" has been AND'ed with 4 different search terms. It might be desirable to combine search #5 with search #2. Rather than type both searches all over again and AND'ing them, it is only necessary to:
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EXCERCISE
(5-10 minutes)
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Back to Index for ENTREZ and Data Base Searches RETURN to the SITE MAP |