Step by Step with Ebsco Academic Search Complete
Ebsco Academic Search Complete is an all purpose database that offers a large number of full text articles on nearly every subject imaginable. This handout takes you step by step through both basic and advanced searching.
- Before you touch the keyboard, think carefully about your topic. Most topics for
college level papers have two main ideas in them. If your topic does
not have two ideas, then you may want to narrow it down. A good example of
a paper topic is: the health effects of using a cell phone.
- The main ideas in this topic are cell phone and health.
- To put these ideas together in a way that Ebsco Academic Search Complete
understands, your search statement becomes "cell phones"
AND health. The AND is not
a word but a logical operator that tells the computer to look for all articles
that deal with both health and cell phones. Here is how Ebsco Academic
Search Complete sees your search statement. The overlap between the circles is your search results.
- To search Ebsco Academic Complete via GALILEO
http://www.galileo.usg.edu, click the golden Databases A to Z
tab in the center of the row near the top of GALILEO's front page.
Then select A in the alphabet list. Ebsco Academic Search Complete
is near the top of the list.
- Ebsco Academic Search Complete pops up in a separate screen
when you click on it.
- Type your search statement in to the box in
Basic Search. Don't forget to check
off the Full Text box.
- Click the Search button to launch your search.
- Ebsco presents results ten(10) at a time and you can
move among them with the scroll bar and move between pages with
the, Previous, Next, and Page Number links.
- Ebsco also lists subject headings in a pale yellow block on
the left side of the page.
- To see an article's abstract and full text where available,
click on its blue title.
- To see an article that is a PDF file or
PDF Full Text, click on its PDF icon.
- To print an article, click on Ebsco's Print icon.
- To email an article, click on Ebsco's Email icon and fill out the form.
- To end a seach in Ebsco Academic Search Complete, click the Home icon in the browser's top row or close your browser.
Ebsco Academic Search Complete Advanced Search
If you are visually oriented, want more space and flexibility, or plan to try several related searches, then Ebsco's Advanced Search is for you.
- Instead of using an AND between
ideas in a search statement, in Advanced Search, you fill separate rows
with your ideas, one row per idea.
- You can also put two or more synonyms for one idea together
using OR, a logical operator
joins synonyms as a single idea.
- In Advanced Search, fill in the multibox.
Select Full Text, and click Search.
- If you want to modify an Advanced Search, edit one or more rows in the Advanced Search multibox near the top of the screen.