There are many databases available to you as students at the University of the Cumberlands. Click here to see a listing of databases by subject. This tutorial deals with the use of a particular database: Academic Search Premier. Academic Search Premier is part of the EBSCOhost group of databases. It contains full text for nearly 3,200 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, and much more. You can access Academic Search Premier by using either of the links above. You can also reach it by clicking Databases A-Z on the library homepage or visiting your department s LibGuide. Once you have selected Academic Search Premier as a database you are ready to get started. You will see the screen below: Enter your search term into the box. Use the options below the search box to refine your search; for example, you may want to narrow your search by selecting full-text or limit your search only to articles originally published in scholarly journals. Click the boxes you want. Hit search.
When you enter your search, you will get a list of results like this: There are two types of results on this list: non-full text and full-text articles. You can click the title of the article to see its full citation and abstract, and in the case of a full-text article you can click the PDF Full Text link to access the entire article. (Note that you will need Adobe Reader to open PDF files.) You will also sometimes see a box that says Click Here to Find It @ UC. This indicates that the article is available elsewhere in our library s databases. Clicking that box will take you to the article, where you have the option of viewing the citation, abstract, and full-text PDF.
If you are interested in a full-text article, here s what you will see when you click on its title: This screen gives you more information about the article, including all its citation information and the author s abstract. If you find an article you d like to use and the full text is not available through our databases, you can request the article via Interlibrary Loan. If you are an offcampus/distance student, we can mail your items to you. Just remember that ILL takes time: plan to wait up to 3 weeks to receive your materials. The earlier you get your request in, the better. You can submit ILL requests online here or through the library s homepage.
If you click on an article that is available in full text, here s what you ll see: To view the full article, click on PDF Full Text at the left-hand side of the article information. In addition, some articles may also be available in HTML Full Text; in this case, a link for HTML Full Text will appear on the left side in place of or alongside the PDF link. Be aware that HTML versions of articles may be significantly altered from the original, especially if there are images included; as a rule, use the PDF version whenever available.
When you click in to either full-text non full-text articles, there is a toolbar at the right side of the page that looks like this:
The most important of these for your research purposes is the Cite tool. Clicking Cite will show you the article s citations in several different formats, including MLA, Turabian, and APA. The different citation styles will appear in a window where you will be allowed to scroll through them. Please note that these citations are not always necessarily correct; check your citation style guide or visit the library before using what you find here.
Once you have completed your initial search, you may need to update or refine it. You can do this within the results page. On the left-hand side you can refine your results by clicking the boxes for Full Text, References Available, or Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals. There is also a Show More button, and if you click on that you will see more search options:
You have the same options here that appeared on your initial search page. Once you have selected the options you want, click on Search again to update your results. Keep in mind that making your search too specific is unlikely to give you better results; it is better to start broad and slowly narrow your search.