Follow the instructions below to help you navigate the databases hosted by EBSCO. These databases include Academic Search Premier and EBSCO Mega File.
Next, type in your keywords and search terms. Also, add in any limiters you would like to apply from the beginning. Below is an example search for college students and social media usage. We will add in limiters in the next step after we search only these terms.
This search provided 45 search results, which is a fairly manageable number. We could stop our search here, or we could add in additional limiters. Additional limiters will allow us to focus our search results more, and will ensure that we are finding results desired. If the additional limiters bring the search results to zero, we will know that our original search terms were too narrow, and we will have to broaden our search terms.
We will add the following limiters (which are show in a screenshot below):
Once your limiters are in place, you can begin looking through the results. Find an article you like, and click the title. This will bring you to the article's record and will provide additional information. Below are some of the additional pieces of information provided.
PDF Full Text: A PDF copy of the article. If this is not here, you will need to request the article through Inter-Library Loan to access and read.
Title: The title is always located at the top of the record, followed by the author and publisher information.
Subject Terms: These terms are created and provided by the authors, but are great terms to use for subsequent searches. These terms are also linked (which allows you to click on the term and be re-directed to a search result page for that term).
Abstract: The abstract is a summary of the article, and is written by the author. Always read the abstract to determine if the article contains information relevant to your research.
Cite: Citations are provided by the database, but should always be checked before used in case of errors.
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