ComAbstract Features

Below is a sample abstract from a ComAbstracts search for the terms 'health' and 'physician'. ComAbstracts considers 'doctor' to be a synonym for 'physician'. Occurrences of original search terms are highlighted in red. Synonyms are highlighted in blue. Synonyms are available for many clusters of terms and are automatically included in searches unless they are explicitly overridden in the user's search specification. All the synonym sets have been designed with the conceptual realm of the communications scholar and student in mind.

Almost all abstracts include additional keywords that increase the likelihood of finding relevant materials. The topic of the sample abstract is compliance and so the keyword 'persuasion' has been included, enabling this abstract to be retrieved in a search for 'health' and 'persuasion' though the word 'persuasion' doesn't appear in the abstract.

In addition to keywords, most abstracts contain "metaterms", which are top level terms that name clusters of keywords. For example, an abstract containing the keywords "doctor" and "cancer" would also contain the metaterm "health", which is the name of the higher level category. A search for "health" is therefore a sure identifier of all abstracts addressing topics relevant to topics in medicine and health care.

The ComAbstracts search system supports full Boolean search logic (AND, OR, NOT, XOR), proximity searches, wildcards, and word conflation (which finds alternative forms of words based on linguistic roots). It can also be searched using a keyword system consisting of menus of prepared terms and search specifications or the CIOS's unique "Communication Concept Explorer," which suggests relevant search terms based on statistical studies of the document database.

Buttons positioned beneath the abstract allow the searcher to jump to other CIOS databases to obtain further information about the author of the abstract.

Links to full text of articles are supplied for journals from participating communication societies.

OpenURL links can provide full text access through a university library that has an openURL server and has registered it with the CIOS.

The database undergoes live expansion throughout the year. Both older and newer materials are added.

Items located in a search result can be saved in a temporary user folder. This feature permits collection of items across searchers for different terms. The collection saved in the folder can be downloaded in plain text or in RIS format for direct incorporation into reference software such as Endnote or Procite. Items from the folder can also be emailed to a recipient address.

For more information, contact CIOS staff at

The following sample abstract assumes that the search was initiated from Western Kentucky University. Of course if the search initiated from a different institution, an appropriate location message would be displayed.

Western Kentucky University library call number/location for this title is:        P101.7 J55 5th floor stacks (note some issues are missing)

Citation:
Holloway, Richard L., and Rogers, John C. (1992). Physician adaptation to patients' locus of control and congruence with health recommendations. Health Communication. 4 (1), 67-78.

Abstract:
Patients' health locus of control scores were used to give physicians specific adaptive instructions for imparting information and decision making. No greater doctor-patient congruence with health recommendations or estimates of compliance were associated with the individualized instructions. Congruence was higher in the control group when physicians were employing their own intuitive strategies.

First author affiliation:
Baylor College of Medicine

Keywords:
health, locus of control, decision making, persuasion

Metaterms:
health, persuasion

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