HOW TO FISH! The purpose of this tutorial is to teach you how to search within multiple, specific journals for a given topic. For example, your instructor states that you should use articles from the following three journals: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Social Psychology, and Social Forces. You want to be able to search in only those journals (and no others) for your specific topic. <click here to continue tutorial>
Turn
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Please note that this tutorial is very narrowly focused ... if you require general assistance with accessing and using the Library's databases, please contact us.
STEP ONE (of two): You need to know in which database(s) the journals are located. This can be accomplished in several ways.
- Use the Journal Search database. Journal Search is a "utility" database that tells you in what other databases you can find the text of specific journals. Click here for the Journal Search tutorial.
- Your instructor may have already provided you with the information, either within a syllabus or through course-specific information at the library's Information and Help area.
- You can contact the Library for assistance by chat, phone, or e-mail.
STEP TWO (of two): Search for your topic within specific journals. This is where this tutorial comes in...it will show you how to perform this type of search using databases from three widely-used search systems: ProQuest (click here), Infotrac (click here), and EBSCOhost (click here).
IMPORTANT Q&A:
Question: How do you know which search system(s) you will be using, i.e., which section(s) of this tutorial should you read and at what point should you read it?
Answer: Due to the technical/detailed nature of this type of searching, it will probably be most effective to read the tutorial only when you are ready to actually perform your search. Which section; ProQuest, Infotrac, or EBSCOhost, you will be using depends on which service provides the database in which the text of your journal is located. Again, there are several ways to know this:
- It may be indicated in your syllabus/assignment.
- Just ask! The Library staff is available to assist you.
- If the journal is part of instructor-specific resource provided by the Library, it will state all of the information you require.
- The Library provides a list that details which service "goes with" (is used to access) each and every database we provide. That list is linked here.
- If you identified the database name using the Journal Search database, there are two ways to determine through which service it is provided. First, let's look at a sample record from Journal Search. In this example, the journal we are interested in finding is History and Memory. (Discussion continued below graphic)
Now that you know which database(s) you can use to find your journal, you want to know which service provides it (so you will know how to search by journal title within that service). There are two simple ways to find that information: 1) There is a list linked here. 2) The Library's databases page states which service is used to access each of our databases.
PROQUEST: Searching multiple, specific journals within ProQuest.
A) Once you have signed into the appropriate database, click the tab for "More Search Options," pictured below, to access the Publication title search box (pictured below).
CLICK MORE SEARCH OPTIONS
B) Use the Browse publications link to locate a specific journal title. When you locate the journal, click the Add to Search button (pictured below).
CLICK ADD TO SEARCH BUTTON
Repeat this step to add multiple journals to your search. In this example, we will search the ProQuest Psychology Journals databases for three journals: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Social Psychology, and Social Forces.
C) We can now enter our search topic/term(s) and perform a search. In this example, our search term will be the word stress.
A note about using ProQuest: When you first sign into ProQuest, the database selection defaults to "Multiple databases" (all of them provided by that service); you can use the "Databases:" drop-down menu to limit your search to one specific databases; in our case, ProQuest Psychology Journals. Additionally, you can use the "Databases selected:" link (not pictured here) to search several, selected databases simultaneously.
LIMIT DATABASES
D) The result of our search is a list of citations for articles on our particular topic, i.e., stress, that are located within the journals we specified.
LIST OF CITATIONS FOR ARTICLES
INFOTRAC: Searching multiple, specific journals within INFOTRAC.
A) Once you have signed into the appropriate database, click the "Advanced search" link, pictured below, to access the publication title search box.
CLICK ADVANCED SEARCH
B) Use the Browse button to locate a specific journal title.
CLICK BROWSE
C) When you locate the journal, click the Submit selections link (pictured below).
CHECK THE JOURNAL TITLE THEN CLICK SUBMIT SELECTIONS
D) Repeat the step above to select up to ten journal titles to search simultaneously.
E) When you have finished selecting journals, perform the search for your topic--the results will be limited to articles within the journal(s) you have specified. Note: After you have performed your search, you will need to scroll down
SCROLL
DOWN TO SEE RESULTS
EBSCOhost: Searching multiple, specific journals within EBSCOhost.
Using the EBSCOhost service to perform this type of search is not so clear-cut as using the two services previously discussed; nevertheless, it is possible to achieve the desired result.
The simplest way to use EBSCOhost to limit a search to multiple journals is by using the advanced search screen. One of the advanced search options is to limit by ISSN (International Standard Serials Number)--a unique identifier assigned to most journals.
Let's see what this looks like before we see how to do it. The following shows a search on the keyword security that is limited to any of three journals: ABA Banking Journal ( ISSN 0194-5947), Bank Marketing (ISSN 1539-7890), and Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (ISSN 0005-5166).
SAMPLE SEARCH SCREEN
The results of this search are articles, on a specific topic, from only the specified journals.
SAMPLE RESULTS LIST
Now let's see how to
do it. This is essentially a two-step process: Step one is identifying
the ISSN's for each journal. Step two is performing the search.
Finding the ISSN:
In identifying which database(s) provide the full text of a given journal, you may have used the Journal Search database. Click here for the Journal Search tutorial. This databases not only identifies which journals are in which databases, but it also identifies the ISSN. For example:
THE ISSN IS THE EIGHT-DIGIT NUMBER AFTER THE TITLE
Using ISSN's with EBSCOhost:
In our example, we desire to search for articles in any of three journals: ABA Banking Journal, Bank Marketing, and Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin. Using the Journal Search database, we have determined that all three journals are indexed in the Business Source Premier database, and that the ISSN's are 0194-5947, 1539-7890, and 0005-5166. The advanced search in EBSCOhost states that we should not include the dashes. Additionally, we add the Boolean operator "or" between our terms so that our search will find articles from any of those journals, i.e., searching for 01945947 or 15397890 or 00055166 tells the database to find articles from ABA Banking Journal or Bank Marketing or Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin.
FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: You may desire to perform this same search several times using different subject terms and/or repeat the search (continue your research) at a later time; with that in mind, it may be very useful to save your search information in a word processed document. Saving your information will save you the time of looking up the ISSN's again! Example of how you might keep notes:
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