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Library Basics - Online Edition

Need to find resources for your paper or project? Here's a quick guide that will introduce you to some of the basic resources that you can use for your paper or project. This Online Edition focuses on just the resources that the library provides online.

Using Limiters & Expanders is a great way to fine tune your search so that you can get better search results. Here are a few key limiters & expanders that are available in EBSCO that you may want to use:

  • Limit to Full Text:  If you click BOTH Full Text limiters (Limit to Bethel and Limit to EBSCO), you'll be able to limit results to the resources that Bethel provides:Full text limiter
  • Date Limiter: Sometimes, your professor will ask you to find resources from within a given time period. The date limiter will allow you to limit your results to the time period that you specify:Date limiter
  • Peer Reviewed: Sometimes your professor will ask that you use Peer Reviewed resources. Clicking on this will limit your results to resources that have been identified in the database as peer reviewed.Peer Reviewed
  • Advanced Searching: If you click on Advanced Search, you'll a more complicated search box and some additional limiters & expanders. The more complicated search box allows you to construct more dexterous searches that can help you better find information. In particular, it allows for two important techniques.
    • AND, OR, and NOT Searching: You'll see drop downs that allow you to choose between AND, OR, and NOT. Enter different search terms on each line and then choose AND, OR, or NOT.  This can be helpful when you want to expand your search: "Presidents" OR "Heads of State" OR "Monarchs" will get you more than just "Presidents."  NOT can be used when you have a search term that keeps popping up and isn't what you want.
    • Select a Field Dropdown:  This can be helpful when you want to narrow your search to specific sorts of terms. For example, a People search for Bush will give you results for people who have the name Bush; a keyword search would be for just that word so bush, the shrubbery, would be included.  
    • Combining the Above: By combining the power of using AND, OR, and NOT searching with the power of searching within specific fields, you can create pretty powerful searches--searches that are more precise than simply throwing words into a search box and hoping for the best.Advanced searching

The following links will take you to the Library's Canvas tutorials. To access the tutorials, you will need your Bethel login information: