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More Database Handouts: Step by Step with EBSCO ERIC

Sometimes popular and general databases are not enough. Learn to search more social science, local, statistical, and education, and dictionary databases step-by-step.

Step by Step with EBSCOHost ERIC

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Search EBSCOHost ERIC.

Step by Step with Ebsco ERIC

Ebsco ERIC is a database that offers full text journal and small books (ERIC Documents) on anything and everything having to do with education. This handout takes you step by step through both basic and advanced searching.

  1. Before you touch the keyboard, think carefully about your topic. Most topics for college level papers have two main ideas in them. If your topic does not have two ideas, then you may want to narrow it down. A good example of a paper topic is: relocation and academic achievement.


  2. The main ideas in this topic are: "academic achievement" which you can bind together with "quotes" because this idea is a phrase and relocation which is a synonym for moving or for changing schools.


  3. To help Ebsco ERIC understand your topic, your search statement becomes: "academic achievement" AND relocation. The AND is not a word but a logical operator that tells the computer to look for all articles that deal with both relocation (moving) and academic achievement. Here is how ERIC sees your search statement. The overlap between the circles is your search results.

    academic achievmeent and relocation in a diagram



  4. To search Ebsco ERIC via GALILEO http://www.galileo.usg.edu, click the gold colored Databases A-Z tab at the top of GALILEO's front page. Click on E and select ERIC.



  5. Type your search statement in to the box in Basic Search. Don't forget to check off the Full Text box.

    6. ERIC search set up and ready to go



  6. Click the Search button to launch your search.


  7. ERIC presents results ten(10) at a time, and you can move among them with the scroll bar and move between pages with the Previous, Next, and Page Number links.


  8. ERIC also lists subject headings under the light green buttons on the left side of the page.


  9. To see an article's abstract and full text where available, click on its blue title.


  10. To see an article that is a PDF file or page image, click on its PDF icon.


  11. To print an article, click on ERIC's print icon.


  12. To email an article, click on ERIC's email icon and fill out the form. EbscoHost also offers a permanent folder for your articles if you register with a username and password.


  13. To send a persistent link to your article or search to Yahoomail, Gmail, Twitter, or MySpace: click Share or Bookmark in small print and then choose an option.


  14. To end a search in Ebsco ERIC, click the Home icon in the browser's top row or close your browser.

Ebsco ERIC Advanced Search

If you are visually oriented, want more space and flexibility, or plan to try several related searches, then ERIC's Advanced Search is for you.

  1. Instead of using an AND between ideas in a search statement, in Advanced Search, you fill separate rows with your ideas, one row per idea.


  2. You can also put two or more synonyms for one idea together using OR, a logical operator that joins synonyms as a single idea.


  3. In Advanced Search, fill in the multibox.

    Here is an advanced search


    Click the Full Text box, and then click 0Search.


  4. If you want to modify an Advanced Search, edit one or more rows in the Advanced Search multibox near the top of the screen.