Search results are seldom perfect. After your first scan you'll start to notice some issues with your resultsThe truth is most academic reach requires series of steps to get the right articles. Once you know the tricks it's pretty fast.
- Quick Limit Options
Frequently there will be too many results to look through. Options include limiting to articles with references available, limiting by publication date and limiting to Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. Just select the option you want and update results.
- Full Text
Due to publisher restrictions, not all articles listed on a result list are available full text from the database. You can easily get rid of the article that don't have full text by selection the Full Text button.
- Peer Reviewed
If your instructor has required that you include some articles that are peer reviewed, select the Peer Reviewed button to get just peer reviewed articles on your list.
- All Time
You can use the All time to restrict articles to just the past 12 months, 5 years or 10 years to get rid of older articles.
- Source Types
Options vary based on your search term, but you can limit to specific source types such as academic journals, eBooks, magazines dissertations, news, reviews, and more.
- More Quick Limit Options
There are a few more options that are basically different kinds of source types that might be available depending your search term: Evidence-based care sheets, Quick Lessons and videos.
- Use the Date Newest Relevance pull down menu
You can use Relevance (how closely it matches your search) pull down menu above your result list (see by watch, below) to re-sort your result list by author, source (periodical or other resource in which the article was published) or date. Depending on your topic, sorting by relevance combined with the date limit can really save you some time in your search. By default, EBSCO sorts the articles by date, putting the most recent articles at the top of the list.
- Save & More
Above each article on your result list you'll find a bookmark icon that lets you save the articles from your result list that you think might work so you can review them on a knew list without the ones you've already decided won't work. There is also a small menu represent by the 3 dots icon that lets you: Cite, Add to a project (requires you t0 be signed into a free EBCO account), Share or Download.
- Scan the Article Info
On your result list, each article has basic information that can help you decide what might work. It includes the title, date published, publication, a brief summary and subjects covered.
- Generate AI Insights
You can select the Generate AI Insights button to get an even better idea of what the article is about and whether it can support your paper or reaserch.
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