Academic Search Complete

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Welcome to the Academic Search Complete tutorial. Academic Search Complete is a multi-disciplinary database containing over 5,300 full-text periodicals including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. These are exactly the kinds of sources you need for college papers! This tutorial will walk you through setting up a search and navigating your results.

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IRSC Libraries

Selecting a Database

1 of 2Click Databases by Subject in the menu on the right side of the IRSC Libraries LibGuides homepage.

Databases by Subject

Selecting a Database

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After clicking Databases by Subject, you will see the A-Z Databases page. This page also allows for filtering by subject.

IRSC Libraries subscribes to about 100 databases. Each database contains different kinds of sources in different formats.

To view the recommended databases for a subject, click on the discipline then scroll down. If you know the name of the database you want to search, you can choose to go directly to an individual database from the alphabetical list on this page.

Click the category General/Multidisciplinary to view the recommended databases for this subject. Databases in this subject division are multi-disciplinary meaning they cover many different topics.

A-Z Databases and Databases by Subject

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General/Multidisciplinary Databases

The second link in the yellow Best Bets! box on the General/Multidisciplinary page is Academic Search Complete (EBSCO). Click that link.

General/Multidisciplinary Databases

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Choosing a Database

Once you've clicked on a specific database, in this case, Academic Search Complete, a login page should open in a new browser tab. You will use your MyPioneerPortal credentials to log in. This is the same email address and password used for your RiverMail email account.

MyPioneerPortal Log In

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Keywords

You are now viewing the Advanced Search page inside Academic Search Complete.

The search boxes are where you place your keywords. Keywords are descriptive terms used to find specific content.

Keywords

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Boolean Operators

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You can see the search boxes are connected by the word AND. This is a Boolean operator. You can choose AND, OR, or NOT to connect your search terms.

Connecting search terms with AND narrows your search by giving you only results containing both of those keyword listed in the search boxes.

Boolean Operators

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Selecting OR broadens your search. It can be helpful to use OR to connect synonyms or similar keywords like "childhood" OR "juvenile" to find more relevant results. Results containing either term will be shown.

OR

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Boolean Operators

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NOT should be used carefully. NOT subtracts all search results containing the keyword listed after it. It can be useful, but can also eliminate many good results.

Type your keywords in the boxes and select your Boolean operator to connect them.

Limiters

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In the Search Options area below the search boxes, make selections to limit your results. It's a good idea to always check the box next to Full Text so that your results include the complete articles and not just the citations or abstracts of the articles.

Limiters

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Many assignments require the use of scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles. You can narrow your results to only scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles by selecting the box next to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals.

Limiters

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It is often helpful (or necessary per the guidelines of your assignment) to search for articles published within a certain date range. You can set the date range in the Published Date area.

Once you select these and have input your keywords, click the Search at the top or bottom of the page.

Limit Your Results

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Search Results

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This page shows your search results. At the top of the page are the same search boxes you saw on the search page.

Directly below the boxes at the left of the page, you will see "Refine Results". From here you can add or remove limiters you have used in your search. You can also refine by Source Type, Subject, Publication, Language, Geography, and others.

Refine Results

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Search Results

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In the center of the page, to the right of your options to refine your search, are your results.

Search Results

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Search Results

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This search yields 3,859 results!

Some unhelpful results can be eliminated by adding more limiters on the right side of the page. Limiting Source Types to Academic Journals and limiting Language to English brings the results down to 3,559.

Additional limiters

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Refining Your Search Results

The search terms entered are broad. There is more than one approach to take to narrow the results.

One way is to add search terms. Adding another keyword to specify some aspect of childhood obesity will help narrow the results. Some options to explore are the causes, possible solutions, social aspects, long-term health effects, etc. of childhood obesity.

Added keyword

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Subject Terms

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Another approach is to use subject terms. The database uses a controlled vocabulary which means it has a preferred way of labeling articles about childhood obesity. The subjects for the first articles are shown in this view.

Subject Terms

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Subject Terms

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Click on the title for the first result. Click on the hyperlinked subject OBESITY in children.

Subject Terms Detailed Record

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Subject Terms

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By clicking on this hyperlinked subject term, the database automatically starts a new search for every article in this database with the subject term "obesity in children".

The added search term and limiters selected earlier have been erased, so add them again.

Check the boxes for Full Text and Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. Type 2014 in the first box of the Publication Date. Select Academic Journals under Source Types and English under Language. Add "social" in the next search box. Search.

This narrows the results to 400 articles.

New Search Results using Subject Term

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Subject Terms

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The results can be narrowed further by adding additional Subject terms to the search or additional keywords, as described earlier.

Reading the Article

Click on the title of an article that looks promising. Click PDF Full Text on the left side (if available) to read the full article.

Full text options

Because Full Text was selected when searching, the full text of all articles should be available as PDF, within the screen below the detailed record information as HTML, or both.

Full text PDF

Database Tools

When you find an article you can use, save it immediately! It took a lot of steps to get to this point and it will be difficult to recreate your exact search later if you want to find this article again.

The database includes tools on the right side of the screen. You can use these tools to email the article to yourself, print it, save the permalink, or create an EBSCO account to save it to a folder within the database.

Database Tools

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E-mail Tool

To email the article to yourself from within the database, click the E-mail tool.

Fill out the form that opens with the email address you want to use to receive the article. Adding a Subject line and Comments is optional. Click the radio button next to Citation Format and choose the style guide you use for your discipline. Press Send.

E-mail Tool

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Cite Tool

Below the E-mail tool on the right side is the Cite tool.

Caution: The cite tool almost always contains at least one mistake. That being said, it can help save you time when creating citations for your References of Works Cited page as long as you check the citation thoroughly for errors.

Cite Tool

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Scroll to the citation style you are using. Highlight the full citation and copy and paste into your Word document. Proofread and correct it according to the style guide you are using.

Certificate

Please enter your name and email address to retrieve a copy of your completed quiz.

You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas. If you are doing this for a class, you may need to enter your instructor's email address also.

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