Advanced Search Help Sheet 

Guided Style Search 

 

Creating an Advanced Search 

1. In the first Find field, enter a keyword. 
2. Choose the search field from the drop-down list (for example, search in only the Subject 
Terms field of the citation). 
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for the second set of Find fields. 
4. Select a Boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) to combine the two Find field entries. 
5. You can enter another Boolean operator, keyword, and search field in the third set of 
boxes. 
6. Use Limiters to narrow your search: 
• Full Text – limits search results to full text articles. 
• Publication – limits search results to articles from a specific title. 


7. Use Expanders to broaden your search: 
• Apply additional terms to query - expands results to include synonyms and plurals. 
• Also search within the full text of the articles - expands search results by finding your 
term(s) within the full text of the articles. 
• Automatically "And" search terms – expands results by applying the AND operator 
between terms, e.g., typing space shuttle would give results for space and shuttle. 


8. Click the Search button. A Result List is displayed. 



 

Searching Techniques 

• Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) can be used to broaden or narrow your search. 
• The Wildcard (?) can be used to replace any character. Enter ne?t to find results 
containing neat, nest or next. 
• Truncation (*) will find all forms of a word. Enter comput* to find results containing 
computer and computing. 
• The Near (N) operator will find search terms within x words of one another, 
regardless of order. 
Enter tax N5 reform to find results that would match tax reform as well as reform 
of the tax code. 
• The Within (W) operator will find search terms within x words of one another, in the 
order in which you entered them. Enter tax W8 reform to find results that match tax 
reform or tax without the ability to reform, but do not match reform of the tax 
code. 





Viewing Search Results 

 

• The article title link takes you to the citation information and/or the full text. 
• The HTML Full Text link takes you directly to the full text of the article. 
• The PDF Full Text link takes you to a PDF version of the full text. The PDF will 
open in the Adobe ฎ Readerฎ. 
• Clicking the Folder icon to the right of a result saves it to the Folder. 



• Click Create alert for this search to set up a one-step search alert that you add 
to your RSS reader. 
• When a Find More Like This appears, click to perform a search for articles with 
similar subject headings. A new Result List will display. 


 

 




Printing/E-mailing/Saving Search Results 

• Click the Print, E-mail, or Save icon. Follow the directions on screen to print, e-mail, 
or save your results. You can e-mail and save your results in popular formats such 
as MLA and APA. 
• You can print, e-mail or save several results at the same time by saving them to the 
Folder, and then printing, e-mailing or saving all at once. 
• To save your results for future use, click the Sign In to My EBSCOhost link and set 
up a personal account. Once you sign in, your results are saved to the Folder, and 
can be retrieved at any time.