Tailoring Search Results in the HighWire Library of the Sciences and Medicine: 
"Have it Your Way"

As originally published in The Physiologist
Volume 45, Number 5, October 2002, page 455

    In the February 2002 issue of The Physiologist, we introduced the new HighWire Library of the Sciences and Medicine, which allows you to search all of Medline plus 300 journals' full-text at once-including all the APS journals, of course! In the last issue, we began a series of short articles highlighting tools or features of this new site, starting with the ability to quickly see which articles are freely available to you right in your search result. This month we continue the series with a look at tailoring a search result to fit your needs. The new site is at http://highwire.stanford.edu.
    The search result pages in the new portal let you change your view of the results with just a click or two. This month we'll look at how to amend, sort, condense, investigate, and download search results.
    The top section of the new search result page makes it easy to adjust your result in several ways:
Amend the result: Your search terms are pre-entered for you in the Quick Search box. You can add or replace terms there and click "go;" or change the scope of your search from searching Medline to focus on the 300+ highly-cited journals whose full-text is found at HighWire by checking a different radio button and clicking "go."
Sort the result: The default sort for the search engine shows you "best matches," meaning those articles in which your search terms showed up most frequently and prominently. Clicking on "newest first" will reorder your search result by date, displaying the most-recently-published articles first.
See more per page: By default, the search engine shows you 10 items on each page. You can ask for 25, 40, 60, or 80 results per page just by clicking on the appropriate number. But note that a page that has 40 items on it will take longer to load than one with only 10 items.
Condense the result: The standard form for each citation provides a lot of information, such as a full list of authors, full citation information, which section of a journal an article is in, whether the article is a review, etc. The "condensed" option displays all the basic citation information you'd find in a reference list, plus a bit more, and takes up only a quarter the space! It looks like this:
Working from results: If you've tried the HWLSM site, you might have noticed that it allows you to click on a link in a search result and go to an abstract or PDF by opening a new browser window, without losing your search result; it is almost as if you can "keep your finger on the page" of a search result while going off to explore new pages. 
    But there are other tools to help you work from results. By clicking in the checkbox to the left of any citation, then clicking the appropriate radio button under the box (to the right of the Search Result information) labeled "For checked items" you can do more with any article in a search result:
    Download each checked item to your local citation manager database: You can quickly add citations and abstracts to your database in EndNote, ProCite, and Reference Manager. Online instructions are provided to be sure everything is set up for an automatic transfer. You can also download an individual article's citation/abstract to a reference manager when you are viewing it in a HighWire-based journal site.
    Expand each checked item to its abstract: A web page of abstracts for the selection citations will come up in a separate window. Each abstract includes a full citation and a link to full-text. As you review pages of search results, you can accumulate possible candidate articles to evaluate further by checkmarking them. Then you can read through the abstracts all at once, print them, or click through to full-text.
    In the next issue we'll look at how you can have the system keep track of your favorite APS journals. 

[Thoughts on Teaching Physiology to Medical Students in 2002] [APS News] [Section News] [Chapter News] [Education] [Membership] [EB '02 Statistics] [Career Opportunities Report] [Public Affairs] [Book Reviews] [People & Places] [News from Senior Physiologists] [Announcements]