LSCI 100: INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION RESEARCH

BASIC KEYWORD SEARCHING ON
THE GALE POWERSEARCH DATABASES

Database description
Doing a search
Displaying and interpreting results
Elements of a citation
Viewing, printing, emailing articles & finding related articles

 

Database description

Gale PowerSearch is a set of online magazine, journal, newspaper and reference databases that are available through Skyline Library from a company called Thomson Gale.

PowerSearch allows you to search a set of various types of databases in a single search.  These databases include the following: Expanded Academic ASAP (academic journals), InfoTrac OneFile (popular magazines & more), Full Text Newspapers (major newspapers), Student Resource Center (variety of student-oriented sources), Informe (Spanish language publications), Health Reference Center Academic (health-related information), Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (information on social issues), General Business File ASAP (business periodicals & company information), and General Reference Center (general-interest information) databases.  A PLS (Peninsula Library System) library card bar code number is required to access these databases from off campus.

 

 

Doing a search

1. To access the Gale PowerSearch databases, click here.  (A new window will open, but this page will still be accessible by clicking on the tab for this page at the bottom of your screen.)

If you are accessing the Gale PowerSearch databases from off campus, enter your library card number from your PLS library card in the entry box.

2. Once you're connected to Gale PowerSearch databases, you will be at the starting point for doing a Basic Keyword search. This is the default method of searching and it is the most common search method to use when beginning to research a new topic.

Basic Keyword searching can be done using only one word, such as multiculturalism; or a phrase, such as child abuse or global warming.


Basic Keyword searching also allows you to do a search for topics that include more than one concept. To search for topics that include more than one idea, connecting words called logical operators are used. The most commonly used logical operator is the word AND. It allows you to connect two ideas related to your research topic into one search statement. For example:

  • women AND homeless
  • smoking AND health
  • California AND immigration

For each of these search statements, the database would only retrieve articles that contain both keywords.

Enter your search word or words in the search box and click the Search button (as shown below).


Your searches will be limited to only those articles that include the full text (i.e. every word in the article) in the database.
 
To broaden your search to include articles that contain only an abstract (article summary) or citation (basic author, title, publication & date information), follow these steps:

·         Look at the Limit results options in the lower portion of the page,

·         click on the check mark for the limit to: to documents with full text to deselect (uncheck) that limit

·         click the Search button.

3. If your search word(s) match any word(s) in the title, citation or abstract of any article, a list of those articles will then be displayed (as shown below). (If your search word(s) do not match the word(s) in any article, you will be asked to try a new search.)

 

Displaying and interpreting results

The Results  page for any search displays article citations, as shown below, which include:
the article title, the author(s), the name and date of the periodical, the page number the article starts on and the number of pages and/or the number of words in the article. 
.


To revise your search, click on Basic Search (to the left of  >Results) on the second navigation line near the top of page. (If you click on Basic Search on the first navigation line, your previous search will be cleared.)

Articles in the list of Results are organized into broad categories, identified by tabs at the top of the list:

·         Magazine or journal articles

·         News articles (articles from newspapers or news services)

·         Book articles (articles from reference books and chapters from book anthologies)

·         Multimedia – photos, maps, pictures, etc.

Click on any tab to see the list for the given category.  If the tab is grayed out, no materials are available for that category for the specific search. 
“Additional Databases” allows you to run the same search in other databases available through Skyline Library’s account with the Thomson Gale company.

The citations are listed chronologically with the most recent article first, 20 citations to a page.

Articles that include the full text in the database have either a "Full-text" and/or "n full pages PDF" link at the bottom of the citation.

[If you have deselected the limit to full-text articles only (see #2 above), citations that have either an "Abstract" (a short summary of the article) or "Citation" link do not include the full text of the article. If an article's full text is not included in the database, you will need to find out whether Skyline or another local library carries the periodical. Skyline Library’s Periodical Holdings page allows you to search any periodical title to see if it is available at Skyline or any other local library.]

The type of article (e.g., brief article, book review, editorial, cover story, sound recording review, etc.) is indicated at the right of each citation.  You may narrow your search to just articles of a specific type (e.g. “Cover Story”) by clicking on an article type on the left side of the results page.

You may also narrow your search by Publication Title or Subjects by using the pull down menu below “Narrow Results:” on the left column.  When you select

When you select Subjects Terms, subject headings relevant to your search appear in the sidebar on the left side of the page for certain types of searches. These hyperlinked terms can help you expand or narrow your search, or take it in a different, but related direction. Each time you click on a term, a new search is performed based on the term you selected, with results displayed to the right



Elements of a citation

The basic elements of a citation are described below the following example:

·         Article title: Too much of nothing: the US continues to push an insane climate policy

·         Brief description of the article (not part of the article title): global warming

·        Author: Tom Athanasiou

·         Name of the periodical: Earth Island Journal 

·         Volume number: 20

·         Issue number: 4

·         Date of publication: Winter 2006

·         Beginning page of the article: 46

·         Number of pages of the article: 2

·         Name of the specific database the article is found in: Expanded Academic ASAP


To see the full record page (complete article information, including abstract and full text, if available) for any article, click on the title of the article.



Viewing, printing, emailing articles & finding related articles

The full record page for an article is shown below.  (The full text of the article is excerpted.)

 

To print an article, click on "Print" in the “Tools” box to the right of the article citation.

To e-mail an article, click on "E-mail" in the “Tools” box to the right of the article citation.

To return to the Results (Citations) page, click on the "Results" link at the top of the article page.

When you find an article on your topic, look at the "Related Subjects" at the left side of the article (as shown above) to view subject headings that describe that article.
- If any of the listed subjects is particularly relevant to your topic, click on that subject to list all other articles in the database that are on the same subject.
  Subject links include: general subject headings, e.g. Air Pollution in the example above (with larger numbers of articles on broader subjects) and
  subject sub-headings, e.g. -- Research in the example above (with smaller numbers of articles related to the specific sub-heading.)

 


To do a new search, click on "Basic Search" at the top of the page.

 

Go to  Lesson 1 Assignment

Lesson 1 Reading

LSCI 100 Home 

last revised: 10-12-07 by Eric Brenner & Dennis Wolbers, Skyline College, San Bruno, CA
These materials may be used for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author and cite the source as: LSCI 100 Introduction to Information Research. All commercial rights are reserved. To contact the author, send comments or suggestions to: Eric Brenner at: brenner@smccd.net