Nature of cross-searching
Cross-searching enables you to search across a number of databases at the same time thus saving time. This is not, however, achieved without some concessions being made.
A search across a number of individual databases cannot be carried out to the same level of detail as if you are searching within an individual database. This is due to the fact that any mechanism for searching across a number of databases can only search using fields that are common across all the databases, for example GetRef searches the author, title, subject keyword and abstract fields. If you are an experienced researcher you may use cross-searching only when trying to identify new databases. Cross-searching is most effective when doing broad searches
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