Searching the ERIC Database
SEARCHING ERIC
How to find it:
- From the library web page /library
Basic Search
The Basic Search offers fewer limiters than Advanced Search. Other differences include:
1. You will find just one text box for your search term rather than the three for Advanced Search. If you want to search two terms simultaneously, such as “parents” and “teachers,” you will need to separate them with AND.
2. In the Expand your search to list (near bottom of the page)
· You may want to consider selecting “Also search within the full text of the articles” so that ERIC searches for your terms in more than just the title of the article.
· Two of the options are already pre-selected. The option for automatically using “and” does not mean that you can omit using “AND” in the search text box between two search terms.
Advanced Search
ERIC automatically opens to the Advanced Search page (see tabs at top of page). You may want to use this instead of the Basic Search because you are better able to refine your results. Basic Search may provide too many articles to look through.
1. You have the option of entering search terms in up to three text boxes at once. You do not need to enter “Education” as a search term since ERIC will automatically includes this criterion.
2. You may want to refine your search by using some of the limiters listed in the Limit Your Results frame:
· If you want only full-text articles, for example, click the Full Text checkbox.
· If you want to limit the results to specific time period you can choose the Date Published parameters.
· Under Journal or Document, you can choose only journal articles as opposed to, for example, conference proceedings and reports.
· Educational Level allows you to limit your results to a particular level of education.
· Publication Type is useful if you want specific types of documents, such as theses and dissertations.
· You may want to specify Country of Publication if you are interested in only schools in this country American. Enter “
· Intended Audience indicates the type of audience for which the article was written. You may be most interested in articles aimed at teachers or administrators, for example.
3. In the list under Expand Your Search To at the bottom of the page:
· You may want to consider selecting “Also search within the full text of the articles” so that ERIC searches for your terms in more than just the title of the article.
· You may also want to select Related Terms, so that ERIC will search for terms that are related to the ones you entered. This can be useful if you’re not quite sure of the exact terms to use.
4. Narrowing Your Search – the column on left side of screen lists terms to further narrow your search. Note that if you pick a search term under this heading, then continue to pick additional ones, ERIC will search for items that contain ALL of those narrower headings. To search just one at a time, you need to use the back arrow to go to the previous screen after a search
More Search Options
At the top of the page, under the three tabs, you will see four green rectangular buttons. The most important ones for you are:
Publications
Click this button to view a list of all of the journals that ERIC searches. This option can be very useful if you want to target specific journals. For example, typing “elementary” in the Browse for text box will yield a list of journals targeted to elementary school teachers, counselors, and other staff.
Thesaurus Search
Thesaurus is a separate and alternative search to the keyword search mode. The search terms it uses are part of an “authority file”—they are standardized headings for this database. The subject terms yield more exact results than those you come up with on your own.
Example:
- If your topic is partnerships/collaboration between schools and the community, for example, you might enter “partnerships” in the Browse for text box and click Browse. The search result will be the “official” term “Partnerships in Education.”
- Click the checkbox in front of “Partnerships in Education” for a fuller definition of the term. Then click the hyperlinked text to preview the type of search results you might get if you searched with it, and also find other related terms you may want to search.
For example, you may want to click the “Educational Improvement” checkbox in the list.
- If you have selected more than one search term, you may want to choose “and” from the drop-down list next to the Add button at the top of the page to search for both terms simultaneously. Click Add near the top of the page.
The selected term will appear in the “Find” text box at the top of the page.
- Before you click Search at the top of the page, you may want to select one of the options underneath the Browse for text box for best results. For instance, “Term Contains” will find your search term not just in the title of the article but also in the text.
- If the search results are not specific enough you can try any of these options:
· Go back to the Thesaurus tab and select additional search terms from that list.
· Enter your own search terms in one or more of the text boxes underneath the Find text box.
· You can click the Refine Search tab just about the results list, where you can select the same limits as for the regular (non-thesaurus) search, such as Full Text.
NOTES about ERIC document availability:
1. Many of the ERIC documents with the number ED in the document number (found toward the end of the full citation) are full text, so watch for a full-text link. Except for the articles linked to from existing EBSCO sources, most of the EJ numbered documents are journal articles that will need to be accessed from a library or interlibrary loaned.
2. When you click on an article citation from the search results list you may see this:
Full Text from ERIC
Notes: This title is not held locally
Request this item through interlibrary loan
You can link to the full text from the Full Text from ERIC link, despite the notation to request through ILL.
