Matter of Fact

Ten Steps to Using Matter of Fact

Matter of Fact is a CD-ROM database that can help you find statistics. After entering key words to describe your subject, it actually gives you an excerpt from an article or other publication in which statistics were quoted. You should always use your own critical judgement when interpreting and using any statistics, and this is especially true in Matter of Fact. The following instructions will take you through the process of using Matter of Fact to find statistics on global textile production.

1. At Windows screen on the library network computers "double click" on the icon for Matter of Fact.  A box labeled "About A Matter of Fact" will appear.  Click on OK to proceed.

2. .Next to the word "Search": type

global or international or foreign

and hit Return.  You should get four sets numbered #1, #2, #3 and #4. Set #1 contains all entries including the word "global," set #2, all those including "international," set #3, all those including "foreign" and set #4, all those including any of these three words.

3. Now, we'll look for some other words. Click inside the "Search" box, and type the words:

textile or apparel or clothing

and hit Return. You should get four more sets numbered #5 - #8.

4. Do a third search by once again clicking inside the "Search" box and typing the words:

produc* or worker* or manufactur *

and hit Return. You should get four more sets numbered#9 - #12. The asterisk (*) is a truncation symbol - a symbol that tells the computer to look for any and all words that begin with the root you've entered. For instance, "produc*" will retrieve produce, producer, production, products and possibly other terms.

5. Now, lets put all these searches together, using the set numbers. Next to the word "Search": type:

#4 and #8 and #12

and hit Return. This will retrieve entries containing the words "global" -and- "textile" -and- "manufacturing" and other combinations from those three sets.

6. The box on the bottom half of the screen displays your results. It will be a list of articles pertaining to global textile production. Each "citation" includes an excerpt from that article and that excerpt includes statistics. Scroll through these "citations" by clicking on the down arrow located in the lower right corner of your screen. (Note: another choice would be to click on the double arrow button. Clicking on this will advance you through the citations one at a time. Each time you hit this key, the next citation will jump to the top of the screen.)

7. Mark two or three of these citations by clicking on the word "Mark" at the top of the screen, and then clicking on "Mark record." If you change your mind, you can click on "Mark" again, and you will be offered the option of "unmarking" it.

8. Print your results: You can print the citations you've marked by clicking on the "Print" button at the top of the screen. A box with print options will appear; click on the "Print" button in this box to start printing.

9.  Saving you results to disk:  You can also save the citations to disk by clicking on the button labeled "Download."  Change disk drive to a: and type in a filename that is 8 characters or less.  Be sure the file name ends with .txt.  For example, you could use the name global.txt for a citation from this search.   Under Downlaod range, click on the circle for the records you want to download.   then click on "Download."  Later when you open the file in a word processor, make sure that you change the file type to "text."

10.  When finished, exit Matter of Fact by clicking on word "File" in the upper left corner of the screen, and then click on "Exit."  another box will appear.  Click on "Exit" one more time and you're out.

NOTE: Look carefully at your printout. Three "fields" may be of particular interest to you: those labeled "SO" (source), "SN" (sudoc number) and "UR" (URLs).

The first, "SO", gives you the name of the publication from which this information was extracted. If we have that publication (and we often do), look for further information there. Ask a librarian for help using our Periodicals Holdings List or Library Catalog to find the publication you need.

The second, "SN" gives the government document or "sudoc" number, if the publication is a government document. If there is one, this number will help you find the publication in the Government Documents section of the library. Once again, ask a librarian for help.

The third, "UR" gives you the Internet address (or URL) where you can find the source of this excerpt.