• Under Search Options, choose a search option. Boolean/Phrase allows you to combine search terms with "and", "or", "not".
  
• Limit your results by Date Published, or to Journal Articles only (Journal or Document)
• Limit your results to materials written for an Intended Audience such as Administrators, Policy-Makers, Practitioners, Researchers, etc. (hold down "control" key to select more than one).
  
  

Advanced Search:

• Advanced Search offers multiple text boxes to enter terms.
• You may also Select a Field to search such as author, title, descriptors, etc.
• Limit your results to Educational Level to target works written about a particular educational environment: Elementary Education, Secondary Education, Higher Education, High Schools (hold down "control" key to select more than one).
• Limit your results by Publication Type such as Reports (all), Reports - Research, and Guides - Classroom - Teacher

• Results are displayed, sorted by date. Change to sort by Relevance for more relevant results.
• Use the toolbar at the left to Narrow Results by Subject. This will reduce the results shown
• From the right-hand toolbar, you can Limit your results to full-text, or to a particular date. To limits results to a particular date, drag the bars above the beginning or ending year and click the Update Results button.
• Mouse over the icon to see a preview of each result (abstract, subjects, citation info)
  
  

Full Text Availability

• From your results, click   or  
• If full-text is not available (no full-text links for the publication), follow the link Click here to Check Availability in the WSC Full Text Periodical Directory (http://www.lib.wsc.ma.edu/cgi-bin/ft_journals.cgi) and search the Directory to see if we own the journal, magazine, or newspaper in which the article appears.
• Reports available in full-text from the ERIC Collections will feature the link .
• Older reports (1966 - 1998) may be available in the Ely Library microfiche collections. The reports will be shelved by the ED #. (ED 426 175) in the cabinets on the first floor (ask at the Reference Desk for assistance).

Printing, Emailing, Saving citations.

• Create a list of citations by clicking Add to Folder for each citation.
• click Go to: Folder View to retrieve your list.
• Select one of the following:
• Print button   will bring you to the Print Manager.
  
• Email button   will bring you to the Email Manager.
  • Enter your full e-mail address (e.g. yourname@wsc.ma.edu) and a Subject.
  • Choose a Field Format or Citation Format (such as APA or MLA) and click send
    
  • Your e-mail message will arrive from ephost@epnet.com.
• Save button   This will bring you to the Save Manager.
  • Choose a Field Format or Citation Format (such as APA or MLA) and click save
• Export button will bring you to the Export Manager
  • Choose a format depending on the program to which the results will be exported.

• From the top toolbar, select the button. This will open the Thesaurus
  
• Enter terms in the Browsing: Eric - Thesaurus textbox to locate relevant subject headings (Descriptors)
• Browse the subject headings and select relevant terms. Checking the Explode box for a term will select that term and all the narrower terms which fall under that term.
• Click links for a subject heading to see Broader, Narrower, and Related Terms
  
  
• After selecting terms, you may add to search using "or". This will add multiple terms, any of which may appear in results. Adding the checked terms above using "or" creates the following search term:
  DE "Autism" or DE "Pervasive Developmental Disorders"
  
• After selecting terms, you may add to search using "and". This will add terms, requiring them to appear in the results. Adding the term "Inclusive Schools" using "and" modifies the previous search term:
  (DE "Autism" or DE "Pervasive Developmental Disorders") and (DE "Inclusive Schools")
• After adding Thesaurus terms to the Basic Search screen above the Thesaurus, click the Search button.
  
  

• The database will track your searches in the Search History. The Search History also allows one to combine and recombine searches.
• From any ERIC window, click the link for Search History/Alerts.
• Searches may be combined. Check the respective boxes and Combine searches with "and" or Combine searches with "or".
• Your search results may be sent to you intermittently (Alerts). Click the Save Searches / Alerts to use this function. You will need to register an account with EBSCOhost to create an Alert or Saved Search.
  

URL:  http://www.lib.wsc.ma.edu/Ebsco/eric.htm
Page maintained by Oliver Zeff
Revised August 19, 2008