Searching Ebsco databases (e.g. Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, CMMC, ERIC, PsycInfo)

Search tips
Reading results & refining your search
Printing articles
Emailing, saving, printing, or exporting results

This the basic Ebsco search screen. It displays several search options, described in the illustration.

These options, and more, also appear on the Advanced Search screen. Since Advanced Search allows you to limit your search to full-text only, I strongly recommend you click on Advanced Search.

(Full text means that the entire article is available online.)

The Advanced Search screen will help you structure your search and provides several ways to limit the results:

Typing in your search terms:

Use AND to connect keywords:
- children’s voice disorders will only retrieve records that contain those three words immediately next to each other, in that order.
- voice disorders and children will retrieve all records in which the phrase voice disorders and the word children appear.
Use OR to search for similar ideas: speech disorders or voice disorders. To use OR, click on the down arrow next to and.
Use * to search for variations on a root word or alternate spellings: child* gets child, child's, childhood, children, children’s; wom*n retrieves both woman and women.

Multidatabase v. individual database searches:
To select multiple databases, click on Choose Databases

Benefits of multidatabase searching: It’s quicker, the results are broader, it provides a multidisciplinary overview of your topic.
Benefits of individual database searching: It’s more targeted, fewer results but more in-depth, it allows use of thesaurus/specialized headings for that discipline.

Full Text: Clicking in this box limits your results to articles that are available online through the database you are searching. You will not see articles that might be available through other databases.

Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals: Many Ebsco databases contain other items in addition to articles from scholarly journals; clicking in this box will limit your results to items in scholarly journals. If you don’t restrict your search at this stage, you can click on tabs when you see the results.

Reading results & refining your search:

Cited References: You can see the bibliography of this article, with links to the articles cited if they're in this database.

Viewing the abstract: You can view the article abstract (summary) by clicking on the article title.

Viewing the entire article: Clicking on the Full Text link will open the article so you can read and print it.

This image illustrates the parts of an article citation.

Printing articles:
HTML Full Text:The entire article will appear when you click on the link. You can use the browser’s print command or the print link provided by Ebsco.

PDF Full Text: The entire article should appear when you click on the link. To print PDF documents, be sure to use the printer icon that appears at the top of the article: do not use the File menu or the printer icon at the top of the browser or you'll get blank pages.

Link to Full Text: The entire article may appear immediately when you click on the link, or you may need to search for an additional link to open a PDF file. To print PDF documents, be sure to use the printer icon that appears at the top of the article. Do not use the File menu or the printer icon at the top of the browser or you'll get blank pages.

: When you see this link, the article is not available through the database you're searching, but might be through a different database. Click the button and a new window will open. If you see Article, the article is available online and should appear when you click the Article link. Example

Citing, saving, and emailing:

You can save records to create a printed bibliography in APA or other style format, or email citations and full-text articles.
Click on the Add to folder link or folder icon next to the records you want. When you've finished selecting items, click on the Folder view link at the right of the screen. (See illustration above)
Select All or as many of the records as you want.
Click on Print or Email or Save.

This is the email option. If you choose email, be sure to remember to enter your email address!

Click on Citation Format and select a style.
Ebsco isn't perfect--remember to check that the citations are formatted correctly!

Exporting to RefWorks:
Follow the same steps you would for emailing or saving above, but select Export.
RefWorks will open if you haven't already opened it.

Susan Clerc
Reference Librarian

ABOUT BULEY