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This guide can be found under Find Articles: Help Go down to ERIC: Screen Shot Tutorial You can access the database under Find Articles: Journal Indexes off of the library’s homepage at www.hamline.edu/bushlibrary
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
The Advanced Search has several components you will want to be aware of. (1) You have several search boxes to put your terms in (three search lines with 3 search boxes). Most of the time, you will place your terms on separate lines. You will see that they are connected by an “AND”. Each line has three boxes separated by an “OR”. The “Or” can be used for synonyms, such as “assessment OR evaluation” or different spellings like behavior OR behaviour”. (2) Each search line can bet set to a type of search: anywhere, keyword, descriptor (subject), title, author, etc... (3) There are several functions that allow you to limit your search to specific times or types of materials. (4) To find the Thesaurus and other advanced search tools click on the Search Tools tab at the top.
The Search Tools screen allows you to combine searches, be notified of items on a particular topic, look at your search history, and a few more options. Probably most important is the Thesaurus. Using a database thesaurus can be a very useful tool to narrow your results. When one uses a general keyword search, it can lead to a high retrieval of irrelevant items. A keyword search looks at several parts of a record for a word and not the idea behind that word. EXAMPLE: Using the word “assessment” in a keyword search may pick up records that deal with educational assessment, tax assessment, housing assessment, or maybe psychological assessment. As you can see, a keyword search can pick up a variety of topics. A Subject or Descriptor search looks specifically at the subject/descriptor field of a record. This field is what describes a particular item. Subjects/descriptors are usually assigned according to a standard of rules such as Library of Congress Subject Headings, National Library of Medicine Subject Headings, Thesaurus of Psychological Terms, ERIC Thesaurus, Sociology Terms, etc... Don’t Worry – You do not have to memorize the terms you would like to use. Most journal index databases provide a Thesaurus for you to use. If a database does not provide one do a normal keyword search, find a record you like, and look at the subject/descriptor field to find what they used to describe that item. Re-search with your new terms. The end result is to narrow and focus your search to the most relevant items!!!
As an example, I have used Classroom Management as the term I would like to use. Click the Go button.
(1) If the term you type in is a DESCRIPTOR it will be listed as such. Sometimes it may tell you to use another term instead. As you can see above the Thesaurus tells us to use Classroom Techniques instead of Classroom Management as our Descriptor.
The Thesaurus will then list, if applicable, Broader Terms, Related Terms or Narrower Terms. This allows you the opportunity to get even more specific with your topic. You can then take the term(s) you find and return to the Advanced Search.
(1) Back in the Advanced Search you can create your search. Put your descriptor in one of the search boxes and (2) change your search to a Descriptor Search from the drop-down menu. Feel free to select any limiters (3) below and then hit the (4) Search button.
(1) How many records your search yielded. (2) The breakdown of those results. Feel free to click on the appropriate tab for narrower results. (3) Start of the records. Basic citation information will be listed. Click on View Record to view the full record. (4) Listing of the Descriptors. Make use of these if you see a record you like.
We can break down the item record into several important parts. (1) Title & author. The author is hyperlinked so you can do a search for other items by a particular author. Included is the rest of the citation information: journal name, volume, issue, dates and pages. (2) Descriptors that describe the item are listed. You can mark any of them and continue to a new search. (3) The abstract or summary of the item. (4) If you would like to print, email or save the citation click on link.
Locating Items
Locating ERIC materials can be confusing because you need to know what type of material you are dealing with. Remember, ERIC contains journal articles, books, reports, conference proceedings and a variety of other documents. ERIC classifies these materials two ways: EJ’s & ED’s (Accession number). EJ’s are journal articles and ED’s represent everything else. There a couple of ways to determine the classification of each item. The following screens will show you how to determine the classification and what to do to access that item.
Journal articles are fairly easy to recognize within ERIC. To the right of the author’s name you can see a (1) title with journal citation information. To be sure you are dealing with a journal article click on the title link or the View Record link.
To find the classification, scroll down to the bottom of the record. The Accession Number will show an EJ or ED followed by a six digit number. This record shows an EJ number classifying this item as a journal article.
To find the article you will need to click on the Article Linker button. This button also appears within the record.
(1) The citation you are looking for will be shown in this area. (2a)The sources that might possibly have the article you are trying to find. If you see Bush Memorial Library’s Periodicals Collection, that will denote that Bush Library has or had a print subscription to the journal. Click on the Journal link to search CLICnet and see if we have that particular issue of the journal. If a journal index database appears as it does in the example check (2b) the Coverage Range to see if that particular issue is covered in the database. If there are no listings, then Bush Library does not subscribed to the item and you will either want to (3) search CLICnet and see if one of the other CLIC schools has it or request it through Interlibrary Loan.
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