While Google is a great tool for finding restaurants and for planning your vacation, you might think twice before you treat patients with information from Google. Here's a tip sheet that shows the pros and cons of different resources.
Last Updated: Dec 5, 2012
URL: http://libguides.usd.edu/database-hit-miss
Print Guide
| Resource |
Pros |
Cons |
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- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Good for finding information on topics about which there may not be many other articles
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- No two searches produce the same results
- Can't sort results by date to see newest pages first
- Google algorithm is a secret -- we don't know how pages are ranked
- Web page authors can manipulate Google algorithm so that their pages are ranked higher
- Ads and sponsored pages show up in results
- Results mix trustworthy and biased content
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- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Shows times cited, citing papers
- Advanced options available for searching by subject, authors or journals
- Good for finding articles about specific instruments or questionnaires
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- No way to know what journals and articles are included
- Doesn't include articles without abstracts
- May not include the newest articles from PubMed
- Can't sort results by date
- No way to search using subject headings, clinical queries, study type or other limits
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- Fast
- Easy
- Free
- Good source for background information when you don't know anything about a topic
- Covers the "long tail"
- Becoming less biased: seeks more references, hot topics, works to verify author credentials
- The ability for anyone to edit most topics means that errors can get corrected quickly
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- The author of an entry is not easily determined
- Generally not well referenced
- Not peer reviewed
- Articles not stable: content can change on an hourly basis
- Hard to tell if an entry is evidence-based
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- Free
- Connects to the full-text of original research easily
- Sophisticated tools for searching, i.e., automatic mapping to subject headings, limits, clinical queries, filter tabs
- Customization features allow you to save searches and citations, set filters, etc.
- Explicitly states what journals are included
- Multiple ways to do things can make it easy to find a way that works for you
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- Requires training for most efficient and effective use
- Platform can be a bit unstable sometimes
- Multiple ways to do things can make it complicated to remember how to do things
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 USD & Wegner Health Sciences Librarians Contact Info
Barbara.Harvey@usd.edu
677-5121
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Timmi.Johnson@usd.edu
677-6615
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Anna.Gieschen@usd.edu
357-1300
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Molly.Youngkin@usd.edu
357-1531
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