Help and Tips
UCOLL 300 - Unit III - Academic Focus
You are already familiar with how to access subject databases, and you may have already tried some searches using them. Doing a "quick search" on your topic, however, is only a start. To improve the quality of your searches, and find the most relevant information on your focused topic, you will develop other skills.
The first of these skills requires you to explore the “help” features of one of the subject databases. Look for a “Help” link, or “Search Tips” link in subject databases. For example, all of the approximately forty EBSCO databases support:
While most all databases will have these capabilities (Boolean, proximity, truncation, and phrase searching), they may not all form these searches in exactly the same way. That’s why it is important to take a minute to look at the help screens.
Toward the end of the Academic Focus tutorial, we will look at examples of how to use these various search methods. For now, just become acquainted with the terms and suggestions the help screens give you.