2. Before starting a search: Agrovoc



Tutorial: how to use Agrovoc (we recommend to watch the video in full screen)

 

Transcript and translation 

Before proceeding with the illustration of Onesearch and the databases at your disposal, we want to point out a useful tool to better focus on the concepts and keywords to be used. To optimize the search and obtain complete and relevant results, it is actually necessary to use a specific nomenclature, which uniquely identifies a specific object or phenomenon within the scientific community.

To meet this need, FAO has developed Agrovoc, a huge vocabulary of terminology linked to the areas of intervention of the UN agency, which has particular characteristics, it is:

  • multilingual: the terms indexed by Agrovoc are available in 40 languages;
  • controlled: for each concept, the preferred terms within the scientific community and the synonyms to be avoided are indicated;
  • structured: the terms are not isolated, as happens in a normal dictionary, but linked together by a series of relationships of synonymy, correlation, belonging.
  • it helps you search for the translation of a term to expand your search results with bibliography of other languages; it is particularly important for searching in databases, where the use of the English language is often recommended to launch searches;
  • it helps you know the "preferred terms" selected by the scientific community, in order to be sure to use a recognized nomenclature;
  • it helps you know the variants, i.e. expressions equivalent to "favorite terms", to avoid in your production, but which could be useful as alternative keywords to expand your search.

This kind of vocabulary is also called thesaurus.

How can Agrovoc help you?

The interface is quite essential: at the top right you will find the search window that allows you to select the source language; on the left, instead, you can select the alphabetical tab which will show you the terms in alphabetical order, just like in a dictionary:


 

If, on the other hand, you select the Hierarchy tab, you will see the concepts ordered hierarchically, starting from the apical ones to the most narrow ones. For example, the term Harvest is hierarchically lower than Cultivation and agronomic practices, higher than gait, compaction into bales etc. which are more specific. Agrovoc also suggests other terms linked by relationships of different kinds. Then follows the list of available controlled translations.




Let's move on to a more specific example: this time let's suppose you have found "rice yellow mottle virus" in an English text and you want to know the equivalent term in the Italian language. In the list of translations you find two results for Italian: the first, highlighted, is the "preferred term", the second is a variant.