RESEARCHING TOPICS IN EBSCO DATABASES

A Guide : By Emily Z. Brown

WHAT IS AN EBSCO DATABASE?

EBSCO is a database platform that provides BCC Students will access to over 25 separate academic databases.

You can choose to search single databases or all EBCSO databases at one time.

This tutorial will show you how to do that.

FINDING AN EBSCO DATABASE

Using the same box on the library homepage as you did for the catalog search Films on Demand and ebrary, click on Articles and then enter your search in the search box.

This particular search box searches the database Academic Search Premier- a general topic database and an easy place to start.

SEARCHING EBSCO DATABASES

When you search from the Library Homepage you are automatically brought to the advanced search (the basic search has a single box on the screen).

You are also automatically limited to articles BCC owns in full text.

Additionally, notice that there is a publication date range tool you can use to narrow your search to articles published within a specific year.

SEARCHING EBSCO DATABASES

Once you’re in an EBSCO database you can click on the Choose Databases link above the search box.

This allows you to choose from all of the EBSCO Databases BCC has access- you can search multiple databases at once. This will increase the number of results you receive back from a search.

SEARCHING EBSCO DATABASES

In this particular search I have added multiple databases and used Boolean to expand my search.

What’s Boolean?

We will explore that on the next slide.

BOOLEAN

AndOrNot

Boolean searching consists of your search terms and using a combination of 3 Boolean operators, namely:

Use the Boolean operator “and” to tell a database you want both terms. Eg. Twitter AND protest would bring back articles that mention both twitter and protest.

Use the Boolean operator “or” to tell a database you want either of the terms. Eg. Protest OR “social unrest” would bring back articles that mention both “social unrest” and protest.

Use the Boolean operator “not” to tell a database you want to exclude a term. Eg. Twitter NOT Facebook would bring back articles that mention Twitter but do not mention Facebook.

SEARCHING EBSCO DATABASES

You can also use the narrowing options on the left side of the screen to narrow further.

I have chosen to narrow by the subject demonstrations (collective behavior).

This means that all of the articles that remain in my search will have the terms twitter and “social unrest” or protest and have the subject of demonstrations (collective behavior).

CHOOSING AN ARTICLE

You can hover over the icon to the right of the title to read the abstract of the article.

The abstract is a little bit like a dust jacket to a book- it will give you a brief overview of what the article is all about.

It’s important to read the abstract as it will help you to identify articles that are pertinent to your research.

ALL ABOUT THE ARTICLE RECORD

There is so much good information available to you in the article record. Here’s what I’ve highlighted:

• The article source information- everything you need to site this as a source

• Subject terms- there terms can help you start new searches using those terms as subjects

• The email and citation functions in EBSCO allow you to email and cite every article in the database.

QUESTIONS

You may be asking: If you’re researching the topic of

Twitter and the social unrest in Ferguson this summer, why are you looking for articles about the Arab Spring?

Answer: Ferguson just happened- at the

time I write this, it’s still happening. The repercussions aren’t recorded in academic books or journals yet.

Finding articles that are about the same theme or topic (twitter and social unrest) can help me research the history of the topic.

By linking the events in Ferguson to events in the Middle East I can draw correlations between the two and make my argument stronger.

Thus concludes our exploration EBSCO databases.