UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA

Dept of Library Services

ERIC (Proquest)

2012

Click on Education Databases on our web page

Click On ERIC

Verification page

Click on Advanced Search

According to your search strategy, type in your 1st set of terms in

the 1st window, the 2nd set in the following window, etc. Immediately

a drop-down menu will appear with suggestions for terms – ignore.

You could also change the field in which your terms must appear

next to each set, eg. SU (Subject) or IF (Keyword) fields. Choosing

the TI (Title) field will give the most exact results, but you might

loose valuable refs which do not include the terms you used

Scroll down the page, and choose your date range, language, and

the educational level for your terms, if applicable. Click on the

Search button

The results will now be displayed. If you haven’t selected the

Document Type as part of your search strategy on the previous

page, a breakdown of the 201 references according to source type

will be displayed on the right side of the screen – it indicates how

many of the 201 references are journals, books, reports, etc. To

view only journals, click on Scholarly journals

You can further refine your results by adding additional terms

within your search strategy, or narrow your date range by sliding

the indicator underneath the date graph, and then click on Update

below it

You can also modify your search strategy. Click on Modify Search,

and change your strategy by adding another search term,

changing search terms, or changing the fields in which the search

terms should occur.

At the bottom of the page are the links to the following pages

One can choose to sort the references according to date instead

of relevance. A Short summary of the articles are displayed, with

the link to the full text of the article at the bottom of the reference,

if it is available in ProQuest

To view the abstract of a reference, just put your cursor on

Preview next to the article title, and this window with the

abstract will open

To see the full details of an article, including the SFX link to all full

text possibilities, click on the title of the article. Click on this SFX

link or to see if the article is available electronically to UP students

When clicking on the SFX-LINK:

Verify whether the full text is available, and click on GO next to the full

text note. The full text should now open to download or print.

If the full text is not available, request the article on interloan

References can be e-mailed, saved or exported to RefWorks (training in this

database follows in October). They must be marked beforehand. Mark your

references by ticking the box next to the article title, or as a batch of 20

references per page:

When you E-MAIL your references:

You have to enter your name here

Choose the format of your references: Brief citation, abstract, indexing by clicking the box next to it

Choose your citation style from the dropdown menu

Choosing your Citation style when e-mailing your references (see

previous slide):

The default style is APA 6th ed. If you use another style, click on the

dropdown menu next to Citation Style and click on your choice (for

Harvard, we use Harvard British Standard)

Leave the File format HTML, and click on the Send email button

This is how your e-mail will look:

first all the references are listed in the citation style you have chosen

(here the Harvard British Standard)

NB: abstracts won’t be shown in this reference list!

At the end of the reference list in your citation style, the references are listed again, this time in the format you have indicated (here: Brief citation,

abstract, indexing) NB: If the full text of the article is available, the URL to the full text is also

listed. By clicking on this link, the full text will open

NB: if 2 URL’s are listed in the same reference:

- The URL will link to the full text of the article. Choose this as a 1st option

- The Document URL will take you to the ERIC page with the full page of the

reference and SFX link. Click on this SFX link to see if the article is available

electronically to UP students (see slides 14 & 15)

When you SAVE your marked references:

At the top of the page, click on My Research

In My Research a folder will open with your saved references

Click on the Save as File button

A Window will open to format your references

Tick this format

Choose your citation style from the dropdown menu

Leave the File format HTML, and click on the Save button

One can now either Open the file, or Save it directly in the folder of

your choice (eg memory stick)

If one chooses to open the file, all the saved references will be displayed. They can now be saved by clicking on File and in the dropdown menu the

Save as button at the top of the page

If one chooses to save the file directly, this window will open where

one can choose the file in which the references must be saved, eg.

your memory stick.

1. Choose your file from the dropdown menu or your list of files

listed on the left side of the screen

2.Name your file

3. Click the

Save button

SOME POINTS TO PONDER WHEN SEARCHING

ERIC

- As the database index both American and British articles - use both

the British and American versions of your keywords, eg. Counselling /

Counseling.

- Be careful of using a fixed phrase, eg. Quality in education. Rather

use 2 search terms: quality and education. Put your phrase in

quotation marks: “quality in education”

- If you have too many references, either add another search term to

refine your results, use a more specific term, eg. secondary schools

instead of schools, or change your date range, by modifying your

search