| Gale Database Searching Tips |
DescriptionThe Gale Cengage databases include many full-text articles and cover a mix of scholarly and popular publications. AccessIf you are in the library or elsewhere on the Gaffney campus, begin at the Eastwood Library home page (http://www.limestone.edu/library) by clicking on Research Databases under Library Resources. Click on the database you wish to use in the list appearing below the yellow category boxes or search by title by selecting the A-Z links. This takes you to a description of the database. Click on the database name to continue. If you are located off-campus, you will be prompted for your Limestone email username and password. From that point, simply follow the instructions and select a database to search. Basic SearchingWhen you do a Subject Guide search, search terms and subject headings containing your topic will be displayed. There will also be a list of subdivisions or narrower aspects of your topic that you may wish to examine. You may also expand/limit your search. When you do a Keyword search, the database looks for the term or terms you entered anywhere in the database -- not just in the built-in subject headings list: words in the article’s title, the author’s name, product names, artistic or published works, and the abstract or brief summary that accompanies some of the article citations. The advantage of a Keyword search is that you are likely to retrieve a larger number of articles. The disadvantage is that many of them may turn out to be irrelevant as your search term may appear in a variety of contexts. For example, a Keyword search on the word “depression” would retrieve articles on mental depression as well as the economic depression of the 1930s. Use a Keyword search when a broader Subject Guide search is not specific enough, when your topic is not covered in the subject guide, or when you are looking for the title of a product, film, book, etc. Operators/WildcardsThe Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT may be used. Combining words with AND requires that both words be present in the results. OR requires that either word be present, but not necessarily both. NOT requires that entries containing the word not be retrieved. Use the proximity operator w with a number to require that words appear within that number of words of each other, in that order (e.g., college w3 student). The operator n works the same way, except words may appear in either order. Use an asterisk (*) to stand for any number of characters, including none (e.g., histor*). Use a question mark (?) to replace only one character in a word (e.g., wom?n). Use an exclamation point (!) to represent one or no characters in a word. This is especially helpful for retrieving American and European spellings (e.g., colo!r). Place quotation marks (“) around your words if you want to require that the words be adjacent in the results. Omitting quotation marks means that the words can be in any order and not necessarily adjacent. Advanced Searching To search an index field, click on the down arrow to the left of the box in which you would type in your topic. This will produce a list of index fields available in that database. Click on the desired index field to transfer it to the top of the list. Then, click in the search entry box and type in your information. Searching from a Bibliographic Citation Limiting/Sorting You may apply limits with the form on the main search page or after you’ve done a search. Once you’ve viewed your results, click on “limit search” to view the limit form and apply any limits. Marking/Tagging Print, E-mail, and Other Retrieval Options Need assistance? Please Ask A Librarian for additional information at http://libanswers.limestone.edu. |
to view your marked list.