EBSCOhost: A Guide to the Basics

What is EBSCOhost?

Basic Searching

EBSCOhost provides various ways to search. The "Basic Search," or keyword search, is the default search screen. [Figure 1]. Other search options include "Subjects" and "Publications."

Results are listed in chronological order with the newest items at the top of the list in the Results screen [Figure 2]. In most cases, results include title, author, date of publication, and a full text link (if available). Click on the article title for a description of the article including full citation information and an article summary (abstract) when available.

The results screen includes options at left to narrow results by subject. Clicking on one of the terms listed under "Subject" causes EBSCOhost to repeat your search, adding the term you clicked as a subject heading. This results in a more focused search.

An option to add articles to a folder for batch e-mailing, printing a list, etc., is available.

E-mail/Print/Save

To print, e-mail, or save, full text to a disk, first display the full article information on the computer screen by clicking on the title of the article. Next, click once on the appropriate control located towards the top of the screen [Figure 3]. (If you don't see the Print, Save, and E-mail controls, scroll up.)

There are two methods of printing.

1. For citations or for full-text articles in HTML text, click the Print link . Select the desired option on the Print Manager screen. When full text is available, the default is to print the text and citation. If full text is not available, only the citation with abstract will print. Clicking the Print button button will display the article in the correct format and launch the browser's print operation.
2. For full-text articles in PDF format, you must click on the "PDF Full Fext" link to open the file. Your browser will launch the Adobe Reader plugin. When the article has finished downloading, use the Adobe Reader print button to print the article.

Figure 4 - Adobe Reader screen, showing print button

E-mail

Click the E-mail link . Type your full e-mail address in the space provided. Optional: You may fill in a word or phrase to appear in the subject line of your e-mail, and add comments, if desired. Click the Send button to finish.

Saving to a disk

Put a flash drive in the USB port, or a formatted floppy diskette in the A:\ drive of the computer. Click the Save link. Select the desired option on the Save Manager screen. Click the Save button . The article will be reformatted for saving. From the browser's File menu, choose "Save As" or "Save Frame As." If you plan to read the file with a word processing program, be sure to save the file as plain text by choosing the "plain text" option from the "Save as type" menu.

Subject Searching

By selecting "Subject Terms" [Figure 5], users can search for articles by topic.

After typing in your topic, "global warming," for example, in the "Browse for" space, a list of subject headings will appear. Depending on your search, you may or may not find your topic listed. If you do not find your topic listed, try other words used to describe the topic.

You will be able to choose a term from the list. Click the checkmark next to your preferred term, then click the Search button.

Advanced Search

The search page [Figure 6 ] can take the user step by step through more complex searching techniques, such as combining and excluding search terms.

Users can also search different parts of the article by clicking on the pull-down menus to display a list of searchable indexes. Available indexes include Author, Article Title, Subject, and Journal Name. For example, the search in Figure 6 will retrieve only articles with the subject "stem cells" and written by an author with the last name "Brainard". See Boolean Searching (http://newterra.chemeketa.edu/library/instruction/boolean.htm) for more information on how to combine terms using AND, OR and NOT in searching.

Other Search Options

Wildcard symbol: ?

Replaces one character. For example, the search for "wom?n" will find both "woman" and "women."

Truncation symbol: *

Allows the user to search for alternate word endings. For example, the search for "comput*" will find "computer," "computers," "computing," "computation," and "computerized."