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EbscoHost Academic Search Premier
EbscoHost University of the Western Cape User Guide
Database DescriptionEbscoHost provides full-text and bibliographic access to journals via a collection of databases. It has the world’s largest academic multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Premier, which provides full-text access for more than 3,600 scholarly publications. Coverage spans virtually every area of academic study. It also has the world’s largest business database and various other specialised databases for news, economics, education, health, psychology, science, technology, geosciences and sports.
Accessing the EbscoHost DatabaseNote: You can use the EBSCOHOST database, without a username or password, when you are physically on campus. The database does not need a username and password because it uses IP Authentication to grant you access to the database. However, when you are off-campus, you will need to have an EBSCOHOST account in order to access the database. This account will be created for you by the UWC Science Faculty Librarian.
You can access EBSCOHOST at the University of the University of the Western Cape directly by typing in the following web address into your browser: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx.
However, if you have forgotten the link, then you can access EBSCOHOST by going to the University of the Western Cape home page. Insert the following web address into your browser to go to the University of the Western Cape home page: http://www.uwc.ac.za. The following window will open up”
(Note: The above window could change over time, however, the logical path to the database should remain essentially unchanged.)
The easiest way to access the UWC Library is to click on the menu bar (see red box below) on the website:
Alternatively you can type in the following web address: http://www.uwc.ac.za/library.
When you have done this the UWC Library home page will appear:
Look at the left-hand menu, and click on Information Resources (see below):
After you have clicked on Information Resources, it will expand to list sub-items, and the window will look as follows:
Click on the sub-item called Databases.The following window appears:
Scroll down in the above window, until you see an alphabetical list (see below).
Click on “E”, to go to databases starting with E.
Double-click EbscoHost Web full-text (as shown above) to enter the EbscoHost Database.
A new window, EbscoHost Research Databases, will open up (see below):
Search Options
You can choose to search either EBSCOhost Web or EBSCOhost Text Only. The only difference between the two selections is that the latter will speed up your web access as it will not have any fancy images on its pages. Both options allow you access to the same collection of databases.
When you select EBSCOhost Web, a window will open up, which will list a number of research databases (see below):
The databases include Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, MasterFILE Premier, and so forth. You can search the databases individually or you can search a number of databases.
When you search an individual database, simply ensure that the database you want to search is the only one that is ticked in the list. Press the Continue button to commence the search.
Academic Search Premier is the default database, and will be the only database already marked when selecting EBSCOHost Web.
It is recommended that you search databases individually, to optimise the response time of the database as well as returning fewer, but more relevant results for each search. Individual database searches are also more flexible, in terms of the number of fields which you can search. When two or more databases are searched together, the fields which are not common to all the databases, will not be available for selection.
However, if you want to select more than one database, you can select a second or a third database by ticking the square box next to the name of the database. The image below shows that Academic Search Premier and the Business Source Premier databases have been selected.
The databases within EbscoHost can be categorised as follows:
Category EbscoHost DatabaseMulti-disciplinary Academic Search Premier
MasterFILE PremierNewspaper Source
Business Business Source Premier
Regional Business NewsEducation ERICMedical / Health Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
MEDLINEHealth Source - Consumer EditionClinical PharmacologyCINAHLPre-CINAHL
Sport / Fitness SPORTDiscusPsychology PsycARTICLESLibrary Science MLA International Bibliography
MLA Directory of PeriodicalsLibrary, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
Communications Communication & Mass Media CompleteSociology SocINDEX with Full Text
The above table aims to make it easier for you to select databases, especially if you want to search a number of databases at once.
Basic SearchWe will search EbscoHost, using the earlier recommendation to search only one database at a time.
Select Academic Search Premier as shown below:
Press the Continue button.
The Advanced Search screen appears (see enlarged portion of image below), which is the default search setting for Academic Search Premier and EbscoHost databases.
Click the Basic Search tab at the top of the screen to perform a simple Keyword search (see enlarged portion of image below).
Using the BASIC SEARCH optionsThe basic search screen has a search box and a window containing two tabs, namely, Refine Search, and Results. Before we enter a phrase or the keyword(s) in the search box, let’s first looks at the Refine Search tab (see below).
This tab allows you to limit the number of results you want returned. Let’s try it out by finding articles on Global Warming.
Enter the phrase Global Warming in the search box next to Find and click Search (see below).
After you have clicked the Search button, the results tab will be displayed (see below):
The Results tab will display all references retrieved on global warming.
The Result List shows 8549 hits. This search is too general for a topic like global warming, and it will be tedious to search through all these references to find the appropriate information. To make the search more manageable, choose the Refine Search tab.
Steps to Refine the Search
Click on
Refine the search by adding a second search term, pollution.. Modify your search as shown below:
Note the use of the Boolean operator “AND” in the search phrase.
You can further narrow or refine your search by using other database limiters, such as the year by specifying the following limiters, i.e. Jan 2000 to Dec 2005 (see below):
When you click the Search button, with these two limiters, that is, the second search term (pollution) and the Published Date, 474 results are retrieved (see below). This result includes a mix of citations and full text articles.
You can refine your search further by selecting Full Text on the Refine Search tab (see below).
The above search yields 259 returned results.
Similarly, if you search for only Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals, you will return 173 results.
When you are satisfied with the returned results, you can sort them by Date (default), Source, Author or Relevance (see below).
The image below shows three articles from the 173 returned results.
Article CitationView an article from the list of 173 returned results, by clicking on the title of the article, for example, if you open result 13 in a new window, it will not give you the full text for the article.
The best way to view the articles is to right-click the title of the article, for example, “Elevated mercury concentrations in …” and selecting Open in New Window (see above). This will save you a lot of time because you will have a separate windows for your results page and another one for the article you are viewing (closing the latter whenever you are done with it).
The following window will appear if you right-click article 13:
This article will only provide you with an abstract of that article. Remember that you have only searched for Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals, which yielded 173 results. This selection does not imply that all your results will be full-text documents. Most of your results will be consists of citations and abstracts, with a few providing full-text. (Should you have wanted full-text articles, then you should have rather opted for a Full Text search.)
However, if your search was intended to be a citation search, then the above window will provide you with all the information you need to cite the article. The above window allows you to retrieve the information in three ways, namely, Print, Email, or Save. You can also copy and paste information directly from the above window.
Print: You will be able to print the information in the above window either in Standard Field Format or in Customized Field Format (see below).
The default setting, Detailed Citation and Abstract, will print the page almost exactly as shown in the window above. Standard Field Format also allows you to print either a Brief Citation or a Brief Citation and Abstract.
The second format, Customized Field Format, allows you to select fields (see Select Fields button in image above) which you want in your citation.
Email: You can also send the citation (in any of the abovementioned formats) to an email address.
Save: Lastly, you can save the citation (in any of the abovementioned formats) to your computer.
Full Article Retrieval and DownloadThe previous search looked for the search terms, “global warming AND pollution”, within Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. This search yielded 173 results, of which the majority can be assumed to be either citations and/or abstracts, with only a few full-text articles. (It is better to select the Full Text option if you want to download and retrieve articles).
Retrieving and downloading full text articles, whether searched selecting either the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals or Full Text options, remains the same. If we look at some of our 173 returned results, we will see that article 14 has two links called HTML Full Text and PDF Full Text (see below).
When you right click on HTML Full Text and select Open in New Window, the following window with the full text article will be displayed:
Like the citations, you can Print, Email and/or Save the article.
When you right click on PDF Full Text and select Open in New Window, the following window with the full text article in PDF format will be displayed:
Again, you will be able to Print, Email and/or Save the article.
Advanced SearchThe Advanced Search allows you to perform a combination Keyword or Subject search, compared to the Keyword search of the Basic Search (see below the basic search box).
The Advanced Search has more search boxes, and looks as follows:
The Advanced Search requires you to play around with the different fields. The different fields in the above search boxes are:
Scrolling down reveals more fields:
The table below provides specific detail about the fields you can select in the Advanced Search. This detail can be quite useful to make your search more specific, or to broaden your search to other fields.
Tag Description Detail(The tags can be used in the basic search as well, for example, entering “AU Jefferson” will return articles by the author, Jefferson.)
TX All Text Performs a keyword search of all the database's searchable fields, e.g. TX Orthomolecular Medicine.
AU Author Performs a keyword search for an article's author, in the format of last name, first name, and middle initial if available, e.g. AU Jefferson.
AR Author Phrase Performs an exact search for an article's author, in the format of last name, first name, and middle initial if available, e.g. AR Hasanov, Alemdar.
TI Title Performs a keyword search for the title of an article, or a descriptive phrase if the article is dated before Nov 87, e.g. TI Price.
SU Subject Performs a keyword search for geographic terms and subject terms describing a document's contents, e.g. SU Wall Street.
GE Geographic Terms Performs a keyword search of geographic locations pertaining to an article's content, e.g. GE California.
PE People Performs a keyword search for people within the article's content, e.g. PE Yuen, Henry.
KW Author-Supplied Keywords Performs a keyword search for author-supplied terms describing the article, e.g. KW Wage Rigidity.
AB Abstract or Author-Supplied Abstract
Performs a keyword search of the abstract summaries, e.g. AB Tax.
PS Reviews & Products Performs a keyword search for products and book reviews within the article's content, e.g. PS Barbershop.
CO Company Entity Performs a keyword search for company terms within the record, e.g. CO "GEMSTAR-TV Guide International Inc.".
IC NAICS Code or Description
Performs a keyword search for NAICS codes or descriptions within the article's content, e.g. IC Motion Picture and Video Industries or 5121.
DN DUNS Number /TK Ticker Symbol /SO Journal Name Performs a keyword search for the journal title in which an
article was published, e.g. SO Time.IS ISSN (No Dashes) Performs an exact search for a publication's International
Standard Serial Number, e.g. IS 00100277.IB ISBN Performs an exact search for a publication's International
Standard Book Number, e.g. IB 0-12-000797-5.AN Accession Number Performs an exact search for an article's identification
(accession) number, e.g. AN 1105290.
Using the Advanced Search Options
To perform an Advanced Search, you can enter any combination of search tags taken from the above table.
When you use the search tags, remember that some tags will increase the number of returns you get, while others will reduce the number of returns you get. Below I am discussing some of the more commonly used tags.
The All Text (TX) TagThe All Text (TX) tag performs a keyword search of all the database's searchable fields. This tag will expand your search, so you must make sure that it is very specific or use it in combination with other tags.
The Title (TI) TagThe Title (TI) tag can provide very specific results provided your search term is very specific. The title search, TI Price, is too general, yielding over 30,000 results. It is better to use this title search in combination with other tags, or to make the search more specific, for example, TI consumer price index, yields a more manageable 70 results.
The Subject (SU) TagThe Subject (SU) tag performs a keyword search for geographic terms and subject terms describing a document's contents, e.g. SU Wall Street. This term can sometimes be very restrictive if the term you are using is not in the Subject Terms used by EbscoHost. You can view the exhaustive list of EbscoHost Subject terms by clicking on Subject Terms (as shown below).
The Geographical Terms (GE) TagThe Geographic Terms (GE) performs a keyword search of geographic locations pertaining to an article's content. This tag is best used in combination with other tags, because by itself it tends to be too general, yielding too many results. However, if the location is very specific, for example, GE Galapagos (over 300 results returned), or GE Swartkrans (7 results returned), or even GE Disneyland (almost 200 results).
The People (PE) TagThe People (PE) tag can prove useful if you want to search, for example, historical figures or prominent researchers. The following searches yielded the following results:(1) PE Einstein, Albert (roughly 900 results returned),(2) PE Hawking, Stephen (almost 200 returned results),(3) PE Bohr, Niels (86 returned results), (4) PE Leeuwenhoek (14 returned results), and(5) PE Darwin, Charles (789 returned results).
From the above returned results, you can see that this tag is best used in combination with other tags, to narrow it down.
The Author (AU) and the Author Phrase (AR) TagThe search for authors can be very general, for example, AU Smith (74, 903 returned results), but this can also be very specific depending on the authors name, for example AU
Mandela (25 returned results). When the surname is very general, such as with AU Smith, you can restrict the search, by using an Author Phrase search. The following search terms progressively narrows down the search to a specific author:(1) AR Smith, John (393 returned results), and (2) AR Smith, John, V (4 returned results).
The Combination Search Example
The above search, AU dawkins And TX evolution And SU genetics, returns 5 results. The reason for the low return is because the Subject Terms is restricting the search results. Changing the SU Subject Terms to TX All Text (as shown below), returns 10 results.
Another combination exampleThe search, PE darwin And TX evolution And TX natural selection returns about 250 results (see below):
You can narrow the results, by clicking on the Refine Search (see image below).
Refine Search allow you to use other database limiters, such as the year by specifying the following limiters, that is, Jan 2002 to Dec 2004 and Full Text (see below):
When you press Search, 49 results are returned.
Retrieval OptionsScan the references found, then click the title to open the document.
Use the arrows or the page numbers at the top and bottom of the screen to navigate to the following set of records. The database displays 20 records per screen.
Do not use the back button on the browser to move back or forward, as this may log you out of the database. Choose to PRINT, EMAIL or SAVE the retrieved information by clicking the preferred option at the top of the screen once the document has been opened.
HTML Full Text
Click HTML Full Text to display the full article in text format only.
PDF Full Text
Click PDF Full Text to display the scanned image of the full article with graphics as it appears in the original source.
To print PDF documents, use the print icon at the top of the article page
Add the references to the folder by clicking the on-screen icon, then e-mail the selected records in the folder to your e-mail account, or e-mail records individually to your e-mail account.
Click the icon to view records.
Click the e-mail link at the top of the Folder Contents screen, enter your e-mail address, and assign a subject or name to the contents, if preferred.
FOLDER CONTENTS
Click the button.
SAVING DOCUMENTS TO DISK
Click button.
Select FILE, then SAVE AS from the browser
Click the “Save” button to save the document as a PLAIN TEXT (.txt) file.
Click BACK to return to the Result List.
Use the ADVANCED SEARCH to execute other combination searches.
TECHNIQUES AND TIPS FOR ONLINE DATABASE SEARCHINGElectronic databases offer a variety of search and browse options to find information on a topic. Online databases may have either a Thesaurus or Subject Guide, which is a complete list of specially assigned subject terms and keywords to be used when searching the database. Other options include using the name of an author, a popular phrase, a combination of keywords or subject headings linked with specific Boolean operators. Explore both the Basic and Advanced Search options by trying one or a combination of the different search strategies.
NB: First construct the search strategy. Enter the search terms in the search boxes provided, and apply the database limiters to refine the search.
BOOLEAN OPERATORSThe Boolean operators “AND”, “OR”, and “NOT” are used to simplify combination searches. Phrases, author names, article or journal titles, keywords or subject terms may be used in a variety of combinations to search for relevant information on a topic. One might wish to combine an indexing term with the name of an author, or even combine a journal name with an assigned subject heading. Words may be excluded entirely when they follow the Boolean operator “NOT” in a search strategy.
Search options for both BROWSING and SEARCHING the EBSCOhost databases are demonstrated in this guide.
RESULT LISTScan the Search Result List to determine whether the information retrieved on the topic is relevant. The Search Result List shows all citations pertaining to the topic words, which were entered as part of the user’s search strategy. Note how all entries show the different parts of a journal citation, i.e. the name of the author, the article title, the journal title, the publication date, the volume number, the issue number, and in some instances, the start page of the article in the online journal, the length of the article , and where applicable, whether the article contains graphics.
EXAMPLE
ARTICLE CITATION
This example of a citation provides standard reference information
TITLE of the ARTICLE NAME(s) of the AUTHOR(s)
START PAGE of the article
LENGTH of article
Should your search retrieve zero hits, try the following options: (1) check your spelling, (2) broaden the search, by using synonyms or variant spellings of the word(s), or (3) should your search retrieve too many hits refine your search strategy by using database specific subject headings.
REMEMBER: Use the Advanced Search option to do any type of combination search. Use the BOOLEAN OPERATORS, “AND”, “OR”, and “NOT” to perform the
combination searches. Phrases, author names, article or journal titles, keywords or subject terms may be
combined to search for relevant information on a topic.
FULL TEXT availability
NAME of the JOURNAL
DATE when PUBLISHED
VOLUME and ISSUE numbers of the SOURCE
