Help with proquest Databases

Below are basic instructions for searching and printing when using the ProQuest database interface.  Much more detailed information is available by clicking on the "Help" option in the upper-right corner of database pages.

SEARCHING

The default option is to search through all the texts and all the citations of all articles in the database.

Other options, such as searching for a particular author or the title of a particular publication (magazine), are available by using the drop-down menus to the right of the search boxes.

Truncation

Use an asterisk (*) to search for all terms which begin with a basic series of letters.   Example: journalis* will search for journalism, journalist, journalists, journalistic, etc.

Combining Terms

You may search for a multi-word phrase by enclosing the words in quotes.  

Example:  "standard oil"

You may use AND or OR to combine search terms.

The search page is set up to enable you to find entries containing two or more search terms by connecting search lines with AND. 

Example:  sport* [AND] women.

You may want to use the word OR to search for synonymous or near-synonymous term.

Example:  sport* [AND] (women OR girls)

RESULTS OF SEARCHES

Clicking on the title of an article will retrieve the digital image (PDF) of the article.   Clicking on "Citation/Abstract" (or "Citation") will retrieve a description of the article

You can re-arrange the results of a search by using the "Sort results by" options on the right side of the screen.  Possibilities include arrange results by publication dates and relevance.

PRINTING AND MORE

Once you are able to view an individual entry, there will be options above the text to

• Print to fit
• E-mail  (to yourself or someone else)
• Cite  (examples of various citation styles -- APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.
• Export/Save  (to your own files or to RefWorks or another citation manager))
• Save to My Research  (set up your own ProQuest account into which you can save articles from various databases)