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Guide to Searching
ERIC through
Accessing
ERIC through CSA
This
database is available to the UST community anywhere on campus
from our library web page, located at
http://www.stthomas.edu/libraries/,
or from off-campus through the
proxy server.
Click on “Library Databases”, then look under Social Sciences
for Education. When the list of education databases comes up,
ERIC—CSA will be in the first group.
Quick Search screen
This is
an easy way to do a simple search. Type a word or phrase in
the search box. ERIC will display as the database selected.
You can change that if you wish by selecting a different
subject or database. You can also select a date range if you
wish. Searching is not case sensitive, so you do not need to
worry about capital letters. If you enter more than one word,
they will be treated as a phrase. To find ALL the words you
type, you must separate them with “AND”; to find ANY of the
words you type, you must separate them with “OR”. Click on
the “Search” button and your results will display.
Advanced Search screen
On this
screen you can limit your search to specific fields (author,
title, keyword, etc.), use Boolean operators (and, or, not) to
construct more complex queries, or limit your search results.
The top of this screen has a search strategy area with rows of
boxes. You can combine terms with “OR” on each line and
create more complex searches by using the pull-down menu on
the left to choose a Boolean operator. If your search is
really complex, you can add additional rows by clicking the
link on the top right. You can limit your search by choosing
a field in the right-hand pull down box, or choose a range of
years, Click on the “Search” button and your results will
display (see example on next page).
Search Tools
There are
two especially valuable tools under the “Search Tools” tab.
1) Combine
Searches
“Combine
Searches” allows you to combine results from two or more
searches, or combine previous searches with new terms. Use
“AND” or “OR” to combine searches. At the bottom of this
screen, you will find your search history. For example, to
combine two previous searches, your new search statement might
be “#1 and #2” to combine the first and second searches in
your history.
2) Thesaurus
The ERIC Thesaurus (see also our
thesaurus guide) is a very valuable tool to
help you find appropriate subject terms for searching this
database. Begin by clicking on the Thesaurus tab. Type in a
search term, and click “Go”. If the word you typed is an ERIC
descriptor (i.e. a “subject heading”), it will display in bold
in your results. If not, the nearest alphabetical terms will
appear. You can repeat the search, but change the display to
“hierarchy” to see if there are related terms that might be
searched instead. Check the box(es) for terms you wish to
search and click “search”. You can search additional terms
using the same procedure. Then use “Combine Searches” to
merge the individual concepts into new results.
3) Peer
Reviewed Journals
A third
feature of this product appears once search results are
displayed. CSA creates subsets of results by type of material
(books, reports, conference papers, journal articles,
and
“peer-reviewed” journals among others). If you are looking
for scholarly or peer-reviewed material, this is a great
time-saver. Click on the tab for the type of material you are
interested in.
Where’s the full text?
The
default display in ERIC—CSA is a brief record and 10 results
per page. You can click on the title to see the full record
for any item. From either the brief or full record screen,
you can click on the “Article Linker” button to locate full
text of a journal article. If the item is an ERIC Document
(non-journal material) and was published after 1993, click on
the “Full-text linking” link to retrieve the full text if it
is available. For ERIC documents older than 1993, you will
need to use the ERIC microfiche housed in Keffer Library.
Occasionally, you may find a citation for a book. These are
not available online or in microfiche, but must be searched in
the CLICnet catalog like other books.
Printing/Saving/Emailing/Exporting to RefWorks
If you
only wish to print, save, or email some or all of your results
without
the full text, select those items by checking the boxes in
front of each one. Choose the “Save, Print, Email” link at
the top of the page. The next page will give you all of those
options. Choose the one you want and follow any instructions
that may follow.
RefWorks
is a citation/bibliographic manager that lets you store
information about your sources and create bibliographies for
your paper. You can export citations directly to RefWorks
from CSA. For more background, go to the
RefWorks information page.
Getting additional help
-
Consult the CSA “Help and Support” link in the upper right
side of any screen.
- Ask a
reference librarian for assistance in person, by phone, or
email (links below).
Donna Nix
or Maura Smyth / #MOH 206 / Opus Hall / Minneapolis / MN /
55403 / reference desk 651-962-4664 /
denix@stthomas.edu
/
mtsmyth@stthomas.edu
Donna Nix / Mail #MOH
206 / Opus Hall /
Minneapolis/ MN / 55403
denix@stthomas.edu 651
962-4662
08/05dn/jph |
