Academic Search Complete
Advanced Search | Search Options | Search Limits (how to search full text, scholarly journals, etc)
The Advantage of Advanced Search
Advanced Search has two major advantages over Basic Search. First, Advanced Search lets you choose which field(s) to search in. You can look for keywords in a title or in an author's name versus just anywhere in the article. Second, Advanced Search has a search limit that allows you to choose what type of document to look for. You can limit your search to anything from book reviews to case studies.
In Advanced Search, you will automatically start off with three search boxes. You can simply type in your search terms and hit enter, or you can choose what field to search. Fields include title, author, subject, etc. You can also search in multiple fields by entering a different term in each box and picking separate fields. Each separate search box is connect by a drop down Boolean connector. You can connect your search fields by AND, OR, NOT. To learn more about Boolean searching, check out this resource from the New York Public Library, What is Boolean Search?
Advanced Search has the exact same search options as Basic Search. For the most part, you won't have to change the options. However in case you ever want to, here is what each option does:
- Boolean/Phrase: This is the default search box.
- Find All My Search Terms: This option places an "AND" in between your search terms. You will only find article that have all your terms.
- Find Any of My Search Terms: This option places an "OR" in between your search terms. You will find articles that have any of your terms.
- SmartText Searching: This option lets you enter in a sentence or even a paragraph and will find similar articles. Be warned, this can be a tricky search to pull off!
- Apply Related Words: This is a built-in thesaurus!
- Also Search Within the Full Text of the Articles: This searches the entire article for your search terms. This is handy if you are looking for words that may not commonly show up in the title of articles.
The search limits for Advanced Search are very similar to those for Basic Search. For the most part, they are self explanatory. Here's a breakdown of the most relevant/useful limiters:
1 - Full Text: Check this box for full text. Full-text articles can be viewed and printed in their entirety through the database.
2 - Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals: Check this box for scholarly/peer-reviewed journals. In many cases, your professors will expect you to use scholarly articles for your papers.
3 - References Available: Check this box for articles with references available.
4 - Published Date: Use these boxes to limit your search to a particular date range.
5 - Publication Type: If you need a specific type of publication, like a magazine or a newspaper article, select that here.
6 - Language: Use this menu to specify what language you want your articles in. This is handy if you are receiving a large number of foreign language articles.