Periodicals Books Newspapers Referencetools

Online Databases

Printed Version

Electronic Version

Annual reports and other publications.

BASIC CONCEPTS OF USING ONLINE DATABASES

Most Online Databases provide the following searching methods :

» Basic Search » Advanced Search» Publication Search

Basic Search is an ideal way to start with. Just think of a word or phrase related to the information you're looking for and type it into the designated field(s).

Basic Search returns more results, if your search terms can be found in anywhere of the following: Abstract, Article Title, Author, Company/Organization, Geographic Name, Subject, Personal Name, Product Name, Publication Name.

1) Basic Search

Basic Search Interface: Ebsco & ProQuest

Advanced Search is a powerful way to search with. Enter your word or phrase, and use the fields to focus your search.

EbscoHost Advanced Search

ProQuest Advanced Search

In a nutshell, to get most results, use “A or B” ; to get results related only to A, use “A not B” ; to get results related to both, use “A and B”

Boolean Search Example one: A & B. Only Articles with BOTH search terms are retrieved.133 found.

Boolean Search Example two: A or BArticles with EITHER of the search terms are retrieved. 8585 found.

Boolean Search Example three: A not B. Articles with only the required search term are retrieved. 3822 found.

Publication Search makes it easy to find the latest issue or a specific back issue of a particular periodical.

3) Publication Search

General guide to using a database:Key in any of the following: 1) Article Title2) Subject3) Author4) Abstract5) Article Text

Decide if an article is relevant by having a look at its title and abstract first.

Print or email marked article(s) for future reference

Mark/save useful article(s) to designated folder (one-off) or save searches to a personal account (until you delete them)

If needed, set up an alert and be notified whenever new articles related to your search are added to a database

Glossary explained (1)

Boolean (Search) Operators: words (especially AND, OR, NOT) used to expand or limit the results of a search. And - combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, education and technology finds articles that contain both terms.Or - combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, education or technology finds results that contain either term.Not - excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it. For example, education not technology finds results that contain the term education but not the term technology.

Stop words: words, such as “the,” “a”, “an,” “of,” and “with,” that are ignored in searches.

Truncation/Wildcard: symbols (*/#/?) used to return all values of a parameter. To use the ? wildcard, enter your search terms and replace each unknown character with a ‘?’ ; to use the # wildcard, enter your search terms, adding the ‘#’ to where an alternate spelling may contain an extra character ; to use truncation, enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with an ‘*’, which may also be used between words to match any word.

Glossary explained (2)

Glossary explained (3)

Bibliographic citation: the information which identifies a book or article, usually includes the author, title, publisher, and date ; whereas the citation for an article includes the author, title of the article, title of the periodical, volume, pages, and date.

Citation Styles: there are many styles and forms used to cite sources used to support research. Most academic institutions have standardized requirements for their students. Some of the most widely used citation styles are APA, and MLA.

Abstract: a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose.

Glossary explained (4)Document ID: aka Accession Number, a numeric code assigned to each

article in a database for retrieval purposes. Searchable in Advanced Search mode only.

Full-text: a term that indicates the availability of a document that is electronically represented in its entirety in a database. Whether or not images, graphs and charts are included depends.

Embargo: in academic publishing, an embargo is a period during which online access through a host service is not available or limited (e.g. subscription is needed, or only the abstract is available).

Glossary explained (5)

Peer-review: the scholarly process whereby manuscripts intended to be published in an academic journal are reviewed by independent referees who are experts in the same field so that the importance, novelty and accuracy of the manuscript's contents is evaluated.

ISBN: the International Standard Book Number , a unique 10 or 13-digit numeric identifier for a particular title and edition of a book.

ISSN: the International Standard Serial Number, a unique eight-digit numeric identifier for a print or electronic periodical publication. The equivalent of an ISBN number for journals.

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