How to Search INSPEC: Controlled/Uncontrolled indexing

When performing a keyword search where you need to identify all the synonyms associated with each concept to ensure that all relevant records are retrieved.  However sometimes using too many synonyms may result in irrelevant records as well.

Controlled Index

Why use?

These are preferred terms used in INSPEC to best describe the article at a most specific level.

It standarises variant spelling, punctuation and terminology.  

Example of spelling : analysers includes analyzers and analysers.

Example of punctuation : online includes online, on-line and on line.

Example of terminology : 

notebook computers includes handheld computers, palmtop computers, pen computers and pocket computers.  This means that if you type the word "notebook computers" in the controlled indexing field, it would also retrieve articles that has "palmtop computer" or "pen computers" in the record of the article.

air pollution includes acid rain, atmospheric pollution, global warming, greenhouse effect.

It eliminates irrelevant records especially where terms are mentioned in the record but are not key concepts of the articles.

It is very useful to search for :

• core subject areas
• topics with numerous synonyms

These are preferred terms assigned to the document from the INSPEC Thesaurus, a 1995 edition is available at SCREF1 (Z699.5 Phy.It). 

Example of a typical hierarchical entry in INSPEC Thesaurus, a 1995 edition, pg. 400.

Preferred term Used for list the non- preferred terms Narrower term - more specific terms Broader term - more general term Top term - the most general term  Related term - an associative term not in the hierarchy Classification code - that represents subject area. Date of Input - when the terms was added to the thesaurus Prior term - use this term to search for data before to the date of input.

molecule collisions     UF energy transfer collisions, molecules      molecular collision processes      molecular inelastic collisions      molecular pion scattering NT atom-molecule collisions      molecule-electron collisions      molecule-molecule collisions      ..........      molecular surface impact      rotational-vibrational energy transfer BT collision processes TT collision processes RT ionisation      molecular beams CC A3440; A3450 DI January 1995 PT elastic scattering of atoms and molecules      molecular inelastic collisions. molecular collision processes USE molecule collisions

The preferred terms in INSPEC thesaurus are in bold and labelled as BT, NT, TT, RT and PT.

Uncontrolled Index

This field contains free-language words or phrases which are assigned by INSPEC indexers, giving a more exhaustive description of the content of the document than that which is provided by the original title or by the controlled index terms.

This is very useful for searching:

• New concepts
• Product or company names
• Geographical terms
• Chemical and numerical data before 1986, for later years use the Chemical and Numerical data fields instead.
• non-scientific or non-technical topics
• Terms that are also common words.

However, you will still need to identify all possible variant spellings, terminology and synonyms associated with the term.