Bare Bones Basics of Searching
EBSCO Databases
EBSCOhost is a family of many databases, including the ATLA Religion database, Old Testament Abstracts, New Testament Abstracts, Academic Search, and others. This guide focuses on generic features common to most EBSCO databsaes; all sample searches in this guide use EBSCO's Academic Search database. Once you have mastered generic features of the EBSCO databases, you may wish to see the separate ATLA tips guide to searching ATLA via EBSCO. It covers things you need to know about distinctive features of ATLA.
How to connect and login
From the library website (http://library.dts.edu) you may link to databases via the title list page, the topic list page, or the dropdown menu on the library home page. If you are off campus, you must login with your DTS ID and library password. Login details.
Keyword search
Figure 110 shows a search in AcademicSearch for literature on the treatment or prevention of drug abuse in teenagers or adolescents. This search illustrates use of logical operators (and, or), truncation (*), and an implied proximity operator (in the phrase drug abuse).
Figure 110: sample search in AcademicSearch
Assuming you are already familiar with BIBLOS, note the basic similarity in the command syntax between BIBLOS and EBSCO. You can see from the example that logical operators work identically in the two search engines. Note also two differences in the example above: EBSCO designates trunction by the asterisk(*), whereas BIBLOS uses a dollar sign($), and EBSCO defaults to exact phrase match if no operator is expressed (e.g., drug abuse), whereas BIBLOS defaults to matching terms in the same field, not exact phrase. Read the following information about operators carefully.
| Operator | Search Example | Result |
|---|---|---|
| and | church and state | And retrieves only records containing both terms |
| or | clergy or pastor | Or retrieves records containing either term |
| not | spirit not holy | Not excludes records containing the second term. |
| ? | wom?n 17?? |
The question mark (?) matches any single character. Wom?n will match woman or women. 17?? will match any date in the 1700's. |
| * | religio* | The asterisk (*) truncation operator matches 0 or more final characters. So eschato* will match words beginning with the letters 'religio', including religion, religious, religiosity, etc. |
| n[+number] | spirit n2 filled | N (= near) specifies maximum intervening words, any word order. The example specifies a maximum distance of TWO words (n2). It matches "Spirit filled" (ZERO words apart) as well as "filled with the Spirit" (TWO words apart). N (by itself with no number) is not interpreted as an operator; you MUST specify a number or the system will just search for the letter n. Use zero for no intervening words: n0. |
| w[+number] | infant w0 baptism | W (= within) specifies maximum intervening words, but it also specifies word order. So infant w0 baptism matches the exact phrase 'infant baptism'. Note W (no number) is not interpreted as an operator; you MUST specify a number or the system will just search for the letter w. |
| ( . . . ) | God and ( grace or mercy ) |
EBSCO supports the use of parentheses to group terms, and it follows the same rules of operator precedence as BIBLOS (e.g., AND combining before OR, but whatever is in parentheses combining first). Parentheses may be used to group terms together into sets and subsets. Logical operators may NOT be combined with proximity operators. For example, you cannot search for: >>pray* n4 (group* or meeting*) |
| two or more words with no operator specified | new age | No operator specified, so defaults to exact phrase like the w0 operator. So >> new age is identical to >> new w0 age. |
| double quotation marks ( " ) | "new age" | Double quotation marks indicate an exact phrase like w0. The also indicate the quoted words should be treated as search terms, not operators. |
Finally, note a picky detail: BIBLOS and EBSCO count the distance differently when proximity operators are used. Here is an example with "Filled" as the first target word and "Spirit" as the last:
| target phrase | Filled | with | the | Spirit |
| matches adj3 in BIBLOS | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| matches w2 in EBSCO | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Expect to see this kind of variation in how different search engines count distance. You will probably not remember exactly what rule a given search engine follows, and you don't need to remember a little detail like that. Just always use the greater number whatever search engine you are using.
Search Limits
Figure 150: Search Limits
The bottom of the search screen allows you to limit by date, language, etc. "Full-text" at the top means limit the search to items that are available online. "Search with full text" at the bottom means search all the words of the articles, not just bibliographic fields like title, subject, etc. This is only available for articles that are available full-text online. It does not include articles saved as page images. If you find nothing with a regular search, try this.
Once you perform a search with limits in place, the limits will remain until you remove them or begin a new search session. There are two clear buttons. Pressing the "Clear" button near the search terms will not remove the limits; pressing the "Clear" button in the limits box will clear the limits.
Browse
Pick the "Indexes" menu button to browse author, subject, etc., much as you do in BIBLOS. To browse a person's name, enter last name first. To browse Bible passages, see the special discussion below.
In EBSCO databases, browsing displays a sorted list of headings (like Fig 220 below), but it does not allow you to click a heading and immediately fetch records of interest. Instead, you must check off the headings of interest (Fig 230) and click an "Add" button to add those terms to the normal search box. Then you must click "Search" button to actually execute a search using those headings (Fig 240).
Figure 210: pick Indexes and then browse
Figure 210 shows picking the Index and entering the browse terms. Figure 220 shows the result when you click Browse.
Figure 220: Browse result
Check all the headings of interest and click "Add" to insert all of those headings as search terms in the search box. See Figure 230 and 240.
Figure 230: Check terms to search
Figure 240: Terms inserted in search box
Finally, click search to execute the search.
Many EBSCO databases use proprietary subject lists. ATLA, for example, uses its own subject headings and name authorities. Usually the terminology is similar to Library of Congress conventions. But there are many differences. For example, LC uses >>Calvin, Jean, 1509-1564 but AcademicSearch and ATLA both use >>Calvin, John. Do not assume all databases use LC terminology. Do assume most databases have been strongly influenced by LC terminology.
Figure 250: Headings, not subject!
Some indexes, like author and subject, appear in every database. But they don't always mean the same thing. For example, in AcademicSearch the subject index does not include everything you would think of as a subject. It does not include personal names (like calvin) and it does not include bible passages. In AcademicSearch the "Headings" index includes everything. Note that is the index we used for the Calvin browse above. It is also the index we use for the Bible passage browse below. In ATLA Religion database, however, the subject index does include everything you would think of as a subject, and there is no index called "Headings." You do not need to memorize such differences between databases. Just remember this one thing: if you are browsing a particular index in an EBSCO database and what you are looking for does not appear, then try a different index.
Figure 260: browse BIBLE
Note the form of entry for a Bible passage in AcademicSearch is >>Bible. N.T. John The punctuation is necessary when you browse.
Other features
This brief intro should be enough to get you started with EBSCO databases, but there is more to learn. The EndNote guide will show you how to download citations from EBSCO and import them into EndNote using filters. (This is not the same procedure you use in EndNote to import results from BIBLOS or other z39.50 servers.) When you have time, see additional EBSCO documentation for information on stopwords and field codes. And take the time to read about other features. For example, it is possible to store a search statement that will automatically execute once a month and email results to you. This is a great way to stay current on a topic of continuing interest.