After you run your initial search query, refine, and review your search results.
You could also set a few limiters before you run your initial search query, and then refine your results with further filters after. Do what works best for you!
After you refine your results, review them, save any potentially useful ones. Also, take note of any different keywords or key phrases that you could use to build up your search.
Go through the tabs to the right to learn how.
Refining your search results using the limiters provided by a given database can help your search results to be more focused, and more manageable, for example, the limiters provided by GALILEO in the image.
In most discovery tool and library database interfaces, you will find a menu on the left-hand side of the screen (like the one pictured here), which will allow you to filter your results by a variety of limiters.
These limiters allow you to make decisions on what to include or exclude from your search results. Select the limiter you wish to apply to your search result. You can easily 'undo' a limiter choice by de-selecting it.
Not all databases have the same options for limiters. Some databases have even more options which will help you to create an even more advanced library search.
But many have the same limiters in common:
| Limiter | Why it is useful |
|---|---|
| Scholarly (Peer Reviewed Journal) |
Only includes sources from a peer-reviewed journal. A peer-reviewed journal is one in which the articles are reviewed by another expert in the field. This is a very useful limiter if your professor requests at least one peer-reviewed resource. |
| Publication Date | Only includes resources from the date range that you set. |
| Type |
Only includes the types of resources in your search results that you select, eg.
|
| Subject | Include the sources that are tagged with a particular subject. |
| Language | Include the sources that are written in a particular language. |
| Database - unique to GALILEO and perhaps other Discovery tools | Include the sources that are drawn from particular databases, e.g. ERIC, Education Source, etc. |
| Limiter | Why avoid it |
|---|---|
| Full-text |
Selecting full-text only includes sources of the entire full-text in the database you are searching in. If we don't have the full-text in one database, we might have it in another. Even though GALILEO searches all of our databases at once, it doesn't always know if we have the full-text for sure or not in one of our databases. Leave this box unchecked. Results with no full-text will have a 'Find it At Augusta' link underneath. Select that link and the system run through to check to see if we have the source in another database. |
| Geography |
The Geography limiter allows you to refine results to those that are tagged to a particular country, or even a particular state. This would work great in theory. Wouldn't it be great to restrict journal articles that were published only in the US or a different country, for instance? Unfortunately, many resources aren't subject-tagged with a country or state, so by filtering to a particular country or state, you could be eliminating a lot of useful sources. |
Once you are happy with how you have refined your search result set, skim through your set of results and save the ones that could be helpful.
In each record's details, your keywords and key phrases will appear in bold.
If a range of your keywords and key phrases appear in the title, or abstract, or subjects, then that is a good clue that the source is useful.
The resource might not necessarily be helpful - you will still need to skim read it and evaluate it - but the fact that your keywords / key phrases are appearing at the top record levels of title, abstract, and subjects indicate that this article is talking about your key concepts.
In GALILEO and most databases, you can easily save your desired results to a temporary folder or list and then emailing them to yourself.
To save and email results in GALILEO and EBSCOhost databases:
Undertake a search in GALILEO or in any EBSCOhost database.
Add your desired records to a temporary folder, by selecting the light blue folder icon to the right of each desired record. The folder icon will turn yellow.
Go to the folder by selecting Folder on the top right-hand menu bar. You should see all your saved records.
Select your desired records - you could individually select records or select all. Select Email.
Input your desired email address.
Choose your citation format, eg. MLA or APA. (Warning: Citations generated are inaccurate most of the time. Check the generated citation against the proper citation guidelines).
Select send: If the entire full-text is available in the database, it will be emailed to you. Otherwise, only the link to the record will be sent, and you will need to download the source separately.
Saving and emailing yourself results from other databases is similar. If you are unsure how to save and email results to yourself from a particular database, Ask a Librarian and someone will guide you through the process.
Skim through your saved results.
Skim the abstracts and subjects if they are provided. You could find ideas for:
Add any useful ones onto the document with your keyword brainstorm.
For example, Anna found the following result below. She found "online social networks" in the Subject Terms and "social networking sites" in the Author-Supplied Keywords, circled. So she took note of it to use these as synonyms for "social media".
