LibGuides: ERIC (EBSCOhost): Limiting Features

Limiting Features

How ERIC reads your search terms

The database allows you to decide how its search tool "parses" your search terms. These choices include:

Boolean Phrase: Search using AND, OR, NOT / exact phrase searching. Learn more from EBSCO's Advanced Search help page
Find all my search terms: Puts "and" between all of your search terms and looks for results that contain all of your terms
Find any of my search terms: Puts "or" between all of your search and retrieves results that contain any of your search terms
SmartText Seaching: Allows you enter/paste large chunks of text to search
Apply Related Words: Searches for alternate word endings and search term synonyms
Also search within the full text of the articles: Looks at full text of articles (instead of title and abstract) to find your search terms)

Options for filtering your results before searching

Commonly used limiting features from the "Limit Your Results" options include:

Full Text: Limits to results that have the entire text available for viewing or download
Scholarly (Peer Reviewed Journals): Limits your search to those publications that use a Peer Review process or are considered scholarly
PDF Full Text: Limits your search results to only documents that are available for download as PDF files (no HTML Full Text)
References Available: Limits your search results to documents that include a bibliography
Published Date: Only displays results within the date range that you specify
Publication Type: Limits your results to the publication type (newspapers, periodicals, etc.) that you select

Further options for limiting results

Other limiting features from the "Limit Your Results" options include

Publication: Limits your results to only those published in a specified journal or newspaper
Document Type: Limits your results to the document type (Abstract, Article, etc.) that you specify
Image Quick View: View the figures, charts, or images from an article
Number of Pages: Limits your results to include documents that have greater than, fewer than, or equal to the number of pages you specify
Cover Story: Limits your results to only cover stories
Image Quick View Types: View specific image formats

How can I narrow a search after it's been placed?

When your search results display, you can further narrow your search by clicking boxes in the left column to add more search criteria. This is sometimes called refining your results.

Refine Your Results

Full Text: View articles online from this database
References Available: Finds articles that contain a reference list or bibliography
Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals: Finds articles which have been approved by a panel of experts before publication
Publication Date: Narrow the range of dates included by clicking and dragging the date sliders, which are circled below
Source Types: This allows you to limit to certain types of publications. A popular choice is limit to Academic Journals
Subject: The "Subject" and "Subject Thesauraus Terms" filters both work by limiting your source results to specific topics, as determined by "official" subjects assigned by the database