 |
| Instructional Guides |
|
|
| Instructional Guides |
|
ScienceDirect is a multi-disciplinary database of online journals published by Elsevier Science and its subsidiaries, as well as some other scholarly societies and publishers. Over 1,800 journals are included. The greatest number of journals are in the sciences, but engineering, social sciences, and humanities are also well-represented. Fine arts are not included. Full page images are available for the journals.
Coverage is from 1995 to the present.
For complete up-to-date information on how to search ScienceDirect, click on the Search Tips button at the top of the right hand side of the page with a question mark on it.
How do I start?Keyword Search:
The easiest way to get started is by using a keyword search. You can just type in terms relevant to your search topic in the boxes. For example, for articles on parenting behavior in fish, you might type in fish and parent in the three boxes.
Tip: You can use an asterisk (*) at any point in a word to get all endings of that word. For ex: parent* will find parent, parents, parenting, etc.
How do I type the terms in?
When you are doing a keyword search you can use the following tools:
Boolean Operators:
Use these between your search terms:
AND - This limits your results to articles that contain BOTH of your search terms.
ex. fish AND behavior (This is the default)OR - This expands your results to include articles that contain EITHER of your search terms.
ex. babies OR infants (use this for similar terms)NOT - This limits your results to articles that contain your first term BUT NOT your second.
ex. fish NOT shark*Truncation:
The symbol for truncation in ScienceDirect is the asterisk ( * ). Using this symbol at the end of a search term will look for all varying endings of that word.
For example: comput* will find computing, computers, computation etc.
What now?
Search:
Click search and the computer will bring back a list of citations. Looking through these citations, you can use information such as the title and abstract to decide which articles are best for you to use in your research.
What do I do if I get too many results?
Limiters:
Hit your back button. Below the entry boxes there are choices to limit your results. You can limit the publication year, as well as the record type. You can also add more keywords using AND to limit your results.
What do I do if I get too few results?
Three possibilities:
Hit your back button.
- Take out one keyword
- Use OR instead of AND
- Use different keywords
Journals available through ScienceDirect
There are over 1800 journals available in ScienceDirect, to see the list of journals, go into the database, click on "Home" in the upper left-hand corner, and in the middle of the screen is a box to search for a specific journal title, or browse though an alphabetical list of all journal titles.
HTML results are easily saved to a disk, opened in HTML and /or printed or emailed to you at your email address. If you chose the Adobe Acrobat .pdf version, you may also print, download, or email this file. However to email a .pdf file, you must save it in a file on your desktop and then attach this file to an email addressed to yourself. To do this, save the file in PDF format by using the tool bar for Adobe Acrobat (not the Windows toolbar) and click on the save icon (a disk). Save the file to your Workspace. Call up your email (e.g., http://webmail.csulb.edu), address the mail, and attach the .pdf file you have saved.
Other Information about ScienceDirect
Keep in mind that ScienceDirect only covers journals from one publisher, Elsevier, so you will want to do your search in another database as well to have a comprehensive search.
****Safari browser Users****
ScienceDirect does not support Safari to view their site. They are aware of a problem where if you access their articles from off-campus, you will be directed to pay for access to that article. If you run into this problem, please use a ScienceDirect supported browser which include: Netscape® Navigator version 6.0 or newer and Microsoft® Internet Explorer version 5.0 or newer.
Be aware that CSULB does not subscribe to ALL ScienceDirect journals, so you may encounter this same requirement to pay if you are looking at a journal CSULB does not subscribe to. There are two ways to check if CSULB subscribes to the journal you are looking for. Look at the journal in ScienceDirect, and those with a green icon to the left are CSULB subscriptions. Or go to Locate Journals on our site and do a title search on the journal you are looking for, to see whether we subscribe. Be sure to check which years we subscribe to.Visit the reference desk on the first floor of the library,
Try 24/7 chat with a librarian, or
Set up an appointment with Cathy Outten, science librarian.
This guide was created by and is maintained by Cathy Outten
University Library, California State University, Long Beach