About ERIC: About ERIC

Guide to ERIC / Searching

SEARCHING IN ERIC

• Enter your keywords into the search boxes at the top of the screen. To search for a phrase, put the words into quotation marks.  

• As you type, suggestions will come up. Use your own keywords or click on any suggestions to use that in your search instead. 

• The default Select a Field option will search all fields in a record and the full text.  
  • Use the dropdown menu to search specific fields. For example, you can search just titles, subject headings, journal titles, education level, etc. 

• The Search Modes and Expanders section provides options that broaden your search results. Use these sparingly. As you expand your search, the number of results might become overwhelming or too vague. Best utilized in the beginning stages of research, for example, when deciding on a research topic and you want to know what resources/items/materials are available.

• Limit your search results:
  • Full Text: Check this box to limit results to include only materials available in Full Text. Helpful when doing last-minute research and you don't have time to wait for interlibrary loan requests. This limiter may drastically reduce the number of search results.
  • Scholarly (peer-reviewed) Journals: Check this box to ensure your search results only include items from scholarly journals. This eliminates popular magazines and newspapers.
  • Document or Journal: Select Document (ED) for government documents, dissertations, books, research reports, and annotated bibliographies. Select Journal (EJ) for journals.  
  • Education Level: Use this filter to select a specific education level to narrow your search, such as Higher Education, Kindergarten, and more.
  • Intended Audience: Use this filter to select your audience, such as students, parents, policymakers, and more.  

NAVIGATING RESULTS 

• Search results will look familiar, as they are similar to other EBSCO databases like Academic Search Complete and CINAHL. 
• Results will be displayed by Relevance. You can change this to sort by Date, Author, or Title. 
• The Limit To section on the left displays available filters. The most useful are:
  • Filter by Linked Full Text. Use this only to see items available in full text.   
  • Filter by Peer Reviewed. Use this if your assignment requires you to use scholarly, academic, or peer-reviewed articles.
  • Filter by Publication Date. Use this if your assignment requires you to have recently written articles (e.g., written in the last five years).
  • Click Show More to see the options from the main search screen. 

Guide to ERIC / Viewing

OPENING AN ARTICLE

Click the article title

Click the article's title to view all the information about the article. This page will give you all the information you need to create the article's reference. 

Click the Full Text link

You can click PDF Full Text, HTML Full Text, or Full Text from ERIC link (whichever is available or your preference).

Click the Check Online Availability link

You may see the Check Online Availability link as you search EBSCO databases.  This means that OCLS has access to this article, but it is in a different database. Click the link to view the article. In some cases, you will immediately see the article, and other times you may need to select a volume and issue.

Guide to ERIC / Saving & Citing 

SAVING, EMAILING, LINKING, AND CITING 

EBSCO databases feature several options for saving, printing, emailing, and linking to items. The options are along the right side of the page and generally are labeled in clear ways. 

• Google Drive - Save pages to your Google Drive. 
• Add to folder -  Add this item to your My EBSCO folder. 
• Print - Print an article.  
• E-mail - Similar to the Save option, the PDF file will be emailed to you instead of downloaded to your computer. 
• Cite - See suggested citations in APA and other formats. 
  • Note: There are always errors with computer-generated citations. Check for capitalization and other errors.
• Export - For power users, export the citations as a RIS file you can upload into Academic Writer or other citation managers.  
• Permalink - The permanent link you can copy and save to revisit. This is the link you want to use if you are sharing a link in a discussion board. 
• Listen & Translate - These features are available for HTML Full Text.