Chemical Abstracts - Student Edition: Quick Guide
Connect to Chemical Abstracts-Student Edition
Database Overview
Chemical Abstracts-Student Edition is a subset of the Chemical Abstracts database. It contains bibliographic records with abstracts, going back to 1967, from about 300 major journals and book series in the chemical sciences. It is updated weekly. The searching interface permits searching by keywords in the titles, indexing terms, and abstracts, as well as author names and registry numbers.
The journals covered in the Student Edition of Chemical Abstracts are selected on the basis of wide holdings in academic libraries in the U.S. All American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry journals and a moderate selection of important chemistry journals and review annuals are included. For each title indexed, the database contains all records from the full CA database back to 1967. No other filter is applied. Consult the list of journals covered if you have a question about a particular title.
What is NOT indexed in CA-SE:
- Books, book chapters (except for some annual review-type series)
- Conference proceedings
- Patents
- Foreign language journals
CA-SE is a useful tool for students needing basic searching in major chemistry and biochemistry journals. It's a good resource for preparing term papers and for preliminary literature searches. Advanced researchers should not rely on CA-SE for comprehensive searching of the chemical literature, but should also search in STN Easy.
SEARCHING CA-SE
Searching for SUBJECTS AND KEYWORDS
Use the default Field, Keyword. Enter one or more search terms. You can use Boolean operators within your search field. Plurals and alternate endings can be included by ending a term with a *. Examples:
- polymer* (retrieves polymer and polymers, polymerization)
- fourier transform
- (nuclear magnetic resonance) or nmr (allow for alternate terms)
Click Search.
This search looks in the title, abstract, and all subject term fields, and is the most general way to search the file.
Searching for AUTHORS
Author names are indexed exactly as they appear on the article, and one author may use several different forms of his/her name, so it's best to browse in the Author index.
To find articles by a single author, change the field to the Author Phrase, enter the author's last name, and then click on scan index button. On the results screen, note the variations in postings for the name you entered. Clicking on one of the name postings will take you back to the Search form and enter the appropriate query in the search box. You can then limit by year, or add a keyword from another field to narrow the results.
To find articles by two or more authors together, search their surnames in the Author field, linked by a Boolean AND.
- smith and jones
Searching for CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES
Specific substances are indexed in CA-SE only by CA INDEX NAME and CAS REGISTRY NUMBER. CA-SE does not index molecular formulas or other commonly used trivial, IUPAC, and trade names. For this reason it's always best to search a substance by its CAS Registry Number. Registry Numbers can be found in many chemical handbooks, catalogs, encyclopedias and other reference sources both online and in print.
- Change the Field Name to Registry Number (CAS)
- Enter the registry number in the search box (include the hyphens) Example: 1234-89-0
- Add other terms in other boxes to limit your search if desired.
- Click Search.
Last updated August 14, 2006