ebsc ohost academic search

How to search the EBSCOhost Databases

mwillihooper@prescott.edu

Prescott College LibraryQuick Guides

The first time you access EBSCOhost, begin at the Prescott College Library

homepage:http://www.prescott.edu/Library/

Once on the Library Homepage, either choose Find Articles, under Library Links, or click on Find Journal and

Newspaper Articles.

Now click on Alphabetical List of Journal Databases.

Scroll down to the “E”s and choose EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier FullTEXT.

TECH TIP:

If you want to save yourself some work later on, add the database link to your browser toolbar so you can get back with one click.

Right click EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier. In the Firefox browser, choose Bookmark this link. Under Folder, save it to the Bookmarks Toolbar.

In Internet Explorer, click Add to Favorites… . Under Create in save to the Favorites Bar.

Off campus or wireless users will now be prompted to enter their

14-digit library barcode number.(this is on the back of your ID card).

Contact Michaela at 928-350-1307 if you don’t know your number.

Welcome to EBSCOhost! This is the Basic Search screen.

If you click on Choose Databases, you will see that we are searching multiple databases.

Unless you know you want to search a specific database (like PsycINFO), leave all of these checked and click OK.

Type the major concepts of your search into the box – i.e. education adolescents homeless – and click Search.

Don’t type a sentence, like “How are homeless adolescents educated?”

There were 8512 results with this search. Too many! Click Refine your results on the sidebar.

You can…

Check the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals box.

Move the Publication Date slide to get articles in a particular date range.

Then click Update.

The next few slides will show you how to access full text. There are three levels of access:

Level 1 – The database (EBSCO) provides the full text in PDF or HTML. If not, continue to level 2.

Level 2 – The full text is not in EBSCO, so you check in Journal Subscriptions to see if it is in another database. If not, continue to level 3.

Level 3 – Use the Interlibrary Loan Article Request form to get the article from another library.

Level 1 - When you find an article you want, click on HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text to view, save, print, or email the entire article.

No PDF or HTML? Proceed to Level 2 and check for full text in our other databases…Copy the name of the Journal – in this case Patient Education and Counseling.

Open a new window or tab and go to the home page, then go to Library Links and

choose Journal Subscriptions.

Now paste the journal title into the search box. Patient Education and Counseling is available in the Science Direct database from 1995 – present. Since you want an issue from 2008, you are in luck! Click on the database link.

Level 3 – If, on the other hand, Journal Subscriptions returns 0 results for a journal, click on Request this item through interlibrary loan to have the article sent from another library.

Those are the basics…if you are finding relevant results, you can stop now.

If not, keep going to learn about Advanced Searching…

When you find a relevant article, look at its Subjects. These are the words the database uses. Note that “adolescents” are frequently called teenagers or youth.

Now go to the Advanced Search screen. Enter one concept in each box. Combine any synonyms (that you can think of or that you have found under Subjects) with the word OR – adolescents OR youth OR teenagers.

To get fewer, but more relevant, results, change the drop down menus from Select a field to AB Abstract. To get even fewer results, choose SU Subject Terms.

Final tips

-Look beyond your first page of results.

-Enclose phrases in “quotation marks”.

-You can truncate a word like “education” with an asterisk – educat* will find educator, education, and educating.

That’s all, Folks!

For more help with searching, contact Michaela at 928-350-1307,

mwillihooper@prescott.edu