A Quick Guide to Using FirstSearch

Advanced Search provides you with 3 boxes for entering search terms. Thus it allows you to structure a more precise search. To do an Advanced Search:

1. Select a database from a list in the Jump to Advanced Search box. To select a database, click on the down arrow to display the list and then highlight the database that you want to search.

2. Type search terms in the Search for box(es) and click on the down arrow(s) to select an index for the search term(s) in each Search for box.

3. Limit your search by Year, Document Type, Language and Items in my library.

4. Use relevance ranking to organize the search results. The most relevant records display at the top of the result list.

1. Type a keyword in the Search for: box
   1. If you are searching for an exact phrase, enclose the phrase in quotes.
      Example: “tropical storm”

   2. Use and, or and not to combine multiple search terms.
      Examples:
      

      cold and zinc	(records retrieved will include both terms)
      cold or zinc	(records retrieved will include either cold or zinc)
      cold not weather	(records retrieved will exclude articles about cold weather)

2. Click on the down arrow by the In: box to select a topic (subject area) or a database which is suitable for the search term(s) entered in the Search for: box.

3. Click on the Search option.

4. View the list of Records and refine the search as needed.

5. To mark a specific record for printing or e-mailing, click on the box appearing at the beginning of that record. After marking records, click the Marked Records link in the Navigation menu to go to the Marked Records screen.

6. Use E-mail or Print functions to output marked records.

• To search for a word and its plural form, add a plus sign + to the singular form. The plus + will search for any plural formed with either -s or -es. For example, giraffe+ retrieves all records that contain giraffe and giraffes.

• To search for the plural of words that change form, such as mouse or story, search for both forms and combine them with the Boolean operator OR. For example, to retrieve mouse and its plural, search for mouse OR mice.

Truncation

• Truncation allows you to search for a term and its variations by entering a minimum of the first three letters of the term followed by an asterisk *. For example, econ* retrieves records that contain econometrics, economics, economist, etc.

• Be careful when using truncation to search for plurals. A search for arch* will retrieve records containing not only arch and arches, but many other unrelated terms such as archdiocese, Archimedes, and archive.

Note: Truncation can only be used after the third character. Also, truncation is currently set to read a limit of 50 index entries.

• A pound sign # represents a single character.

• A question mark ?, alone or with a number, represents from zero to nine additional characters. Include a number if you know the maximum number of characters the wildcard will replace. Otherwise, use the question mark ? alone to represent any number of characters within a single term, including no additional characters.

Note: Wildcards cannot be used at the beginning of a term.