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Databases can have some of the strongest evidence in support of your research to be found anywhere online. A huge variety of resources of high quality can be found within a database if you know how to search effectively. You have the option to select for peer-reviewed articles and to examine the methods used to gather the data presented. All of this along with the credentials of university and public sector researchers make databases a hub for reputable sources.
The following is guidance for accessing and searching three commonly used databases: 1) Proquest, 2) JSTOR, and 3) EBSCOhost.
Taken directly from Proquest:
Using Proquest
Search Tips
· Use quotation marks (“”) to search for exact phrases.
· Two word queries such as advertising campaigns are searched as an implicit AND.
· Use special characters and operators to focus queries.
· If a specific field is not entered with a search query, the default is to search across All Fields+ text (all indexed fields of the full record plus the full-text from ProQuest) or All Fields (no full text) (all indexed fields of the full record, but not including the full-text). This default is determined by your ProQuest administrator and the preference can also be chosen in the account preferences section of your My Research account. Please see the My Research section of this guide for additional information on creating a My Research account and changing preferences.
· Spelling variants enable the search engine to recognize and match differences in spelling between American and British versions of a given word such as humor vs. humour and between English and older English versions of a given word such as sing and syng when appropriate. This default is determined by your ProQuest administrator and the preference can also be chosen in the account preferences section of your My Research account. Please see the My Research section of this guide for additional information on creating a My Research account and changing preferences.
· Lemmatization enables the search engine to recognize and match different grammatical forms of a word such as with plurals and adjectives. For example, searching for mouse will also produce hits onmice. Searching on tall will also produce hits on tallest. If you do not want Lemmatization to be applied to your search, enter your term in quotation marks " ". This default is determined by your ProQuest administrator and the preference can also be chosen in the account preferences section of your My Research account. Please see the My Research section of this guide for additional information on creating a My Research account and changing preferences.
Operator Precedence
ProQuest assumes your search terms should be combined in a certain order. If you include operators such as AND and OR, we will combine them in this order: NEAR, PRE, AND, OR, NOT.
For instance, a search on education AND elementary NOT secondary would be interpreted as (education AND elementary) NOT secondary. So in this case,(education AND elementary) is considered first.
This search will return results regarding education with information on elementary but not secondary education.You can also use parentheses to control the order in which your search terms get combined, instead of using the standard operator precedence.The use of parentheses and Boolean operators in combination is perfectly acceptable.
Boolean Operators
AND
Use AND to narrow a search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates, e.g. adolescents AND children will only find records containing both these words.
OR
Use OR to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates, e.g. adolescents OR children will find records containing adolescents only, children only, or both words.
NOT
Use NOT to narrow a search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it, e.g. adolescents NOT children will find records that contain adolescents, but will not contain the word children.
Truncation, Wild Card and Hyphen Characters
*
?
-
The asterisk (*) is the Truncation character, used to replace one or more characters. The truncation character can be used at the beginning (left-hand truncation), the end (right-hand truncation), or in the middle of a word.
Example: Searching for econom* will find economy, economics, economical, etc.
Searching for *old will find told, household, bold, etc.
The question mark symbol (?) is the Wildcard character, used to replace any single character, either inside or at the right end of the word.
The wildcard character cannot be used to begin a word.
Example: Searching for t?re will find tire, tyre, tore, etc.
Searching for ad??? will find added, adult, adopt
Use a hyphen to indicate a range when searching numerical fields, such as Publication date.
Example: YR(2005-2008)
Proximity Operators
Proximity and adjacency operators are used to broaden and narrow your search.
NEAR/#
OR
n/#
PRE/#
OR
p/#
EXACT
OR
.e
Finds documents where these words are within some number of words of each other (either before or after).
Note: You must specify a number or “near” will be treated as a search term, rather than an operator.
Example: computer NEAR/3 careers
Finds documents where these words are within some number of words of each other in the specified order.
Note: If you do not specify a number, a default value of 4 words will be applied.
Example: business management PRE/5 education
Used primarily for searching specific fields, like Subject, EXACT looks for your exact search term in its entirety, rather than as part of a larger term.
Example: Type EXACT(“higher education”) in the Subject field
Will retrieve: documents with the subject term "higher education"
Will not retrieve: documents with the subject terms of “higher education administration”, “women in higher education”, etc.
Basic Search Tips
Search across all of ProQuest Research Library with the Basic Search. Boolean, proximity, and field codes are supported. The default is to search for ALL terms entered. Separate terms with OR to find any of the terms. To search for an exact phrase, use "quotation marks" around your search.
When running a search, the search default is set to Anywhere. Anywheresearches the full bibliographic record (all indexed fields) including the ProQuest full text. Your ProQuest administrator may have chosen to change the default to search Anywhere except full text (ALL) instead. Anywhere excpet full text (ALL) searches the full bibliographic record, but does NOTinclude a search of the ProQuest full text. If this were the case, you will see a note above the search box stating this: You are searching all fields except full text.
Full text, Peer reviewed, and Scholarly journals are limits that appear in the Basic Search. The visibility of these limits is determined by your ProQuest Administrator Module settings. Whether or not any of these are checked by default is also determined by your ProQuest Administrator Module settings.
Checking the Full text limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records containing full text from ProQuest.
Checking the Peer reviewed limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records that are indexed in peer reviewed journals. Peer reviewed journals are a subset of scholarly journals and are defined as journals that undergo a review process where other experts (peers) in the field review the work before it is published in the journal. Peer reviewed journals are also commonly known as refereed journals.
Checking the Scholarly journals limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records that are indexed in scholarly journals. Scholarly journals are journals that are intended for an academically oriented audience.
Advanced Search Tips
Perform a more detailed search using the pull-down menu with supported field codes as well as the limit to section to apply additional limits.
1. Advanced Search Form and Pull-down Menus
Boolean, proximity, and field codes are supported. The default is to search for ALL terms entered. Separate terms with OR to find any of the terms. To search for an exact phrase, use "quotation marks" around your search.
When running a search, the search default is set to Anywhere. Anywheresearches the full bibliographic record (all indexed fields) including the ProQuest full text. Your ProQuest administrator may have chosen to change the default to search Anywhere except full text (ALL) instead. Anywhere except full text (ALL) searches the full bibliographic record, but does NOTinclude a search of the ProQuest full text. Other search fields can also be chosen from the pull-down menu such as abstract, author, document title, and publication title.
For a full listing, description, and examples of how to format a search usingfield codes indexed in ProQuest Research Library, please visit the Searchable Fields section of this guide.
2. Limit to: Full text, Peer reviewed, Scholarly journals
Full text, Peer reviewed, and Scholarly journals are the first limits that appear in the Advanced Search. The visibility of these limits is determined by your ProQuest Administrator Module settings. Whether or not any of these are checked by default is also determined by your ProQuest Administrator Module settings.
Checking the Full text limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records containing full text from ProQuest.
Checking the Peer reviewed limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records that are indexed in peer reviewed journals. Peer reviewed journals are a subset of scholarly journals and are defined as journals that undergo a review process where other experts (peers) in the field review the work before it is published in the journal. Peer reviewed journals are also commonly known as refereed journals.
Checking the Scholarly journals limit will restrict your search to only search and retrieve records that are indexed in scholarly journals. Scholarly journals are journals that are intended for an academically oriented audience.
3. Date Range
The Date range limit defaults to search all dates. Other options include Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 3 months, Last 12 months, Last 3 years, On this date, After this date, Before this date, and Specific date range.
4. Database Specific Limits and Fields
The Source type limit refers to the publication type. All are unchecked by default and if you leave them as such when you run your search, all source types will be included in your search. Limiting your search by marking any of the source types will then only run your search to include those source types you selected.
The Document type limit is used to refer to the format of the full-text. This includes articles, blogs, books, and many others. All are unchecked by default and if you leave them as such when you run your search, all document types will be included in your search. Limiting your search by marking any of the document types will then only run your search to include those document types you selected.
The Document feature limit can be used when you want to limit your search to items that contain additional graphical images such as charts, tables, photos, or illustrations. All are unchecked by default and if you leave them as such when you run your search, all document features will be included in your search. Limiting your search by marking any of the document features will then only run your search to include those document features you selected.
The Language limit is used to restrict your search to documents published in one or more languages. All are unchecked by default and if you leave them as such when you run your search, all languages will be included in your search. Limiting your search by marking any of the languages will then only run your search to include those languages you selected.
5. Display Options
The Sort results by menu controls the sort order of the records that appear in the results page. Sort by relevance, date (oldest first), or date (most recent first). Relevance is determined by an algorithm that factors in the number of times your search terms appear in the record as well where in the record your search terms appear.
Items per page is used to select how many results will display on the results page. Choose from 10, 20, 50, or 100 items.
Duplicates can appear in ProQuest if the item is indexed in more than one database or collection. The default behavior is to suppress the duplicate, however, if you would like the duplicate items to appear in the results, select to include duplicate documents.
6. Thesaurus
The ProQuest Thesaurus is used to index the ProQuest Research Library subject field. The subject terms are found in the subject field and this is one of the searchable fields listed in the searchable fields table. Thethesaurus allows you to find subject terms to narrow or broaden your search. Subjects are also commonly known as descriptors, controlled vocabulary, and sometimes classification terms. In ProQuest Research Library, there are different subject types and in addition to the all encompassing subject field, there are also company/organization, person, location, and product. Please see section 4 of this page for additional details on these subject types.
For additional details on how to use the thesaurus and search using the subject field, please see the Searchable Fields section of this guide.
Taken directly from JSTOR:
Using JSTOR
Libraries may choose to subscribe to individual archive collections, current journals, and may purchase books from JSTOR. All of the content licensed or purchased by a library is cross-searchable on JSTOR. The journals, books, and pamphlets on JSTOR are all full-text and scholarly (most are peer-reviwed).
Searching JSTOR
Searching JSTOR
There are two options for searching on JSTOR, a Basic Search or an Advanced Search.
Basic Search tips:
· Place words within quotation marks to search for exact phrases (“to be or not to be”)
· Use Boolean operators to construct a better search (“tea trade” AND smuggling)
· Use field codes to search for titles and authors quickly:
o To search for an article titles - ti:”Non-Cooperative Games”
o To search for an author – au:”Albert Einstein”
Advanced Search tips:
The Advanced Search form is especially useful when you want to target a search to a type of content or to a specific discipline.
· Construct a more complex query by adding more search fields.
· Use the drop-down boxes to limit search terms to the title, author, abstract, or caption text.
· Use the “Narrow by” options to search only articles, include/exclude book reviews, search for content published during a particular time frame, or in a particular language.
· Focus your search in specific disciplines and titles using checkboxes.
Search Results:
The search results pages offer many features for sorting and reviewing search results.
· Use the tabs at the top of the search results list to filter results to a specific type of content (journals, books, pamphlets).
· Use the sorting options to view search results by relevance, oldest items, or newest items. Use the “Display” option to view more results on a single page.
· By default, all search results are for content licensed or purchased by the host institution. Researchers may choose to see results for all content on JSTOR by changing the “Show” option to “All Content.”
Viewing Content on JSTOR
Viewing Content on JSTOR
The “view” page for each item on JSTOR provides many ways to explore the content. The “Tools” box includes the option to view and download a PDF, as well as many options for saving and exporting citations.
For journal articles:
· The “Summary” link on an article view page provides the abstract (if one was published with the original item) and list of references from the article. Where possible, JSTOR provides links from the references to other articles on JSTOR, and sometimes to off-site content.
· The right-hand side of the page provides helpful links to related content on JSTOR and to searches for related content on Google Scholar.
For books:
· When reached via a search, the book view page shows links to two of the most relevant chapters at the top of the page.
· The book view page also contains the table of contents and introductory text snippets for each chapter in the book, as well as an easy “Download Chapter” buttons to obtain PDF copies of chapters.
Organizing Research with MyJSTOR
Organizing Research with MyJSTOR
A MyJSTOR account is a valuable tool for research on JSTOR. With MyJSTOR you can organize content and manage your profile:
· Save citations: email, export, print, and track citations you've saved.
· Set up journal alerts: receive an email when new issues for your favorite journals are available.
· Change your password, updated your status, and opt in to or out of communications from JSTOR.
Using JSTOR on a mobile device
Using JSTOR on a mobile device
JSTOR uses responsive design to create a consistent and smooth experience across most mobile devices, as well as on laptops and desktops. Responsive design enables the JSTOR interface to adapt to the screen size of a device without requiring a separate mobile URL or any device configuration.
Researchers can go directly to www.jstor.org on a smartphone or tablet and the JSTOR interface will adjust automatically. JSTOR’s responsive design is compatible with most newer (within the last few years) mobile devices across many different operating systems.
Off-campus access
Off-campus access
JSTOR’s “Institution Finder” (https://www.jstor.org/action/showLogin) allows anyone using JSTOR from a remote location to log in to their library proxy server from the JSTOR site. Locate your institution from a list on the JSTOR website, log in to your library website, and then you will be returned to JSTOR.
Getting Help with JSTOR
Getting Help with JSTOR
JSTOR Support is available to help. You can email, tweet @JSTORSupport, and now, chat online with our support team!
Click Contact Us in the top right corner of any JSTOR page and look for the “Chat with JSTOR Support” icon. And, of course, self-service online help is available at any time of the day at http://about.jstor.org/jstor-help-support.
Using EBSCOhost
Introduction to EBSCOhost
Basic Searching
Advanced Searching
Search Alerts
EBSCOhost Support. EBSCO, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015. <http://support.ebsco.com/tutorials/ehost>.
Proquest Support. Proquest, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015. <http://support.proquest.com>.
"Help & Support." About JSTOR. JSTOR, n.d. Web. 19 May 2015. <http://about.jstor.org/jstor-help-support>.
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