Guide to using ProQuest

To access ProQuest databases

1. Choose ProQuest from the dropdown menu on the Research Databases page. This takes you to the Basic search page, searching all ProQuest databases at once. To search an individual database, choose it from the dropdown menu.
2. Or, go to the alphabetical or subject-based lists of individual databases on our website, and click on the specific database you are interested in (i.e. ABI/Inform). This will take you directly to the basic search page, with your chosen database preselected.

Basic Search (Main search page)

Type your search words in the box. Below the box you will see ways to limit your search:

1. Date Range: This allows you to limit the dates of the articles you find. The dropdown menu defaults to “All dates”, but has many options such as “Last 7 days” or “Last 30 days”. You can also select “Specific date range” and enter your own date limits.
2. Limit Your Results to Full Text Articles Only: Checking this box limits your results to journals for which the full text is available in the database.
3. Limit Your Results to Scholarly Journals: Checking this box will only return articles in scholarly journals. (This box will not appear for databases without scholarly journals.)
4. Clicking “More Search Options” below gives extra options, which are well-explained on screen.

Advanced Search

To perform an advanced search, click on the Advanced Search tab in the top left of the screen. Advanced search allows several extra capabilities:

1. Boolean searching: This is the AND in the dropdown boxes you see on the left. You can type search terms in each of the three boxes and connect them by choosing AND, OR or AND NOT from those boxes. For example,
   
   will find articles about drug addiction, but that are not also about alcohol addiction. Other Boolean options you see in the dropdown boxes are WITHIN 3, which finds your search terms within three words of each other; and PRE/1, which connects your search terms as a phrase.
2. Searching specific fields: This is the dropdown boxes to the right. The default search is in citation and abstract. These boxes can be set to search in the title, author, or other more specific fields. This can be handy if you are looking for a particular article, or for articles by a certain author, among other things. You can also search in the Publication Title field – this is how to find an article in a particular journal – or within article text.
3. Again, clicking “More Search Options” below gives extra options, which are well-explained on screen.

A successful search will list your search results 10 articles at a time, with a blue “Next” arrow at the bottom right to move to the next 10 results. The entry for each article includes:

1. The title of the article in blue, followed by the author, journal name in bold, date, page numbers, etc.
2. The full-text status of the article. This may be “Full Text”, “Text + Graphics”, or “Page Image”. (A page image retains the original layout of the article.) If there is no full-text status, then only an abstract or citation is available.
3. A checkbox to the left of each article for marking articles that you want to go back to. (See below for more on marking.)

Marking articles: To mark an article, check the box beside it in the article list, or check the box labeled “Mark Article” if you are looking at the article itself. If you mark several articles at once, you can then go back and review/print your selected articles. Click on “View marked articles” above the search results to get to your list.

Printing: To print an individual article, click the yellow “Print” button above the article. You can print a list of your marked articles from the “Marked List” page, but you still have to print the articles themselves individually.

Email Articles: This button allows you to email the articles to yourself to be read or printed later.

Always feel free to ask a librarian if you have questions or problems using ProQuest databases! We’re here to help you! There is an online tutorial available in ProQuest’s HELP section, just click on the red “Help” at the top right of the page. Remember, you can access ProQuest from off campus – visit the off-campus access page at http://library.pfeiffer.edu/proxysetup.html for more!