Searching Summon Effectively: Quick tips from LSE Library

What is Summon? What should I use it to search for?

Summon http://lse.summon.serialssolutions.com/ Summon is a “Google type search engine” which you can use to quickly cross search and

locate printed books, electronic books, journal articles, working papers, content from LSE research online, PhD Theses.

Search results can be quickly saved and exported into an Endnote library References to journal articles include links to the citing articles (when taken from ISI web of

science) It is very good at searching broadly and can retrieve items from unexpected places! However, remember that it does not include all the items in the library. Items excluded are

law cases, images, parliamentary debates,legislation. To locate databases containing these consult the library subject guides. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/subjectGuides/Home.aspx

Also remember that Summon is not designed for comprehensive searching. In some instances it does not search 100% content of a database. You will also find that the individual databases ( eg scopus) have more sophisticated advanced search forms and alerting features which may be more suitable for advanced researchers. If you require these you should continue to search these individually. Locate the correct link by searching for the title on the main lse library catalogue Lists can be found on the subject guides. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/subjectGuides/Home.aspx

Looking for specific books.

Go to the advanced search formIf you know the title enter it in inverted commas eg “ against the third way”

Looking for books and articles by specific authors

Go to the advanced search formEnter the name of the author in the written/ created by field .You can either enter the full first name then surname or alternatively you can search more broadly by truncating the author’s first name to an intial e.g. Livingston, S* . This may be more comprehensive as many authors do not publish under their full first name.

Looking for specific journal articles

Go to the advanced search formEnter the name of the journal in inverted commas in the from this publication field eg “media culture and society”You can also enter the issue and volume numbers in the fields beneathAnd the name of the author in the written by/ created field

Browsing contents of specific journal issues

Go to the advanced search form.Enter the name of the journal in inverted commas in the from this publication field eg “media culture and society”You can also enter the issue number and volume numbers in the fields beneath.This should retrieve all the articles in the issue if it is available online.

Subject Keyword Searching

How to construct an effective search Go to the advanced search form

Break your essay question search into a number of phrases or keyword terms. Do not type in full sentences. e.g the question compare and contrast recent housing policy reforms in Australia and the Germany has the keywords housing policy Australia and Germany.

Enter phrases in inverted commas. Eg “social policy”. Summon will then search for these words together in the same word order.

Combine search terms using AND (this must be entered in upper case.) eg the search term Internet and legislation will only retrieve results which contain both these terms.

Search for alternative words/synonyms by combining with OR (enter in upper case) eg woman OR female

Search for alternative spellings or word endings using the wild card * eg marx* will retrieve marx, Marxist, Marxism

Note that search results are ordered in relevance ranking. You may wish to resort them by date order.

How to cope with too many results!

One problem with Summon is that it can find too many results Here are some quick tips for coping with this.

Always use the advanced search form. Summon will default to include newspaper articles tick the box exclude from results to get

rid of them Limit your search to scholarly (peer reviewed) items. This will include books, articles. It may

exclude newspaper articles, some trade wires. Limit the date range of your search Limit to full text only. Note that this may exclude important items that the library has in print.

So think carefully!

However despite this you may still find too much. You may therefore need to refine from the results page. This looks like this.

Look for the refine features on the left handside if the screen. Limit by content type eg articles, newspaper articles. Click on the more button for further

options. This will retrieve an option box

where you can choose to include or exclude the type. If you are finding too many items excluding newspaper articles, book reviews and trade publications may be good options.

Other refinement features are subject terms click on the more button to see the full list. These are automatically generated so may not make sense. In all circumstances! But they can be useful if your search term can have several diverse meanings eg turkey as a country, turkey as a bird as you can quickly deselect the inappropriate term!

Saving results.

Search results can be emailed, exported to endnote and/or printed.

To do this click on the plus symbol next to the individual item. This adds it to a folder. The number of items in the folder is displayed at the foot of the screen.

Once you have marked all the items you need. Click on the folder saved items icon at the foot of the screen.

Choose the citation style you require eg Harvard, APA.Then print, email To download into Endnote, click on the Endnote tab, and open the file. It should be

downloaded directly into your Endnote library.

For more help contactHeatherh.dawson@lse.ac.uk