Academic Search Complete from Lawrence W. Tyree Library on Vimeo.
This video tutorial will demonstrate how to find and access articles through the library database Academic Search Complete.
To access library databases, click the gray Databases button at on the library website.
Academic Search Complete is the second database listed in the Library's Recommended Databases. Academic Search Complete is a good starting place to find full-text journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, with a broad range of topics. To access this database, click its title.
To log in, your username is your SF ID number @sfcollege.edu. On the next screen, enter your college password.
This is Academic Search Complete's advanced search screen. Use the search boxes to look for articles about your topic. When searching in a database, use as few words as possible, and put different concepts in different boxes. In this example, the phrase gun control is in the first search box and United States is in the second search box.
The default is to limit your search to only full text. This means limiting only to articles that can be read immediately. The Full Text box should already be checked. To limit your search to scholarly articles, check the box next to Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals.
If you need to limit your results to more recent articles, you can use the Published Date limit on the search page. For instance, you may wish to limit to articles that were published within the last five years.
The number of search results is listed below the search boxes. The results list contains basic information about each article. The title of the article is in blue.
For a quick look at more information, hover your mouse over the magnifying glass icon directly to the next to the article's title. This will pop up a window with more information, including the article's source, which is the magazine or journal it was published in, and an abstract, which is a summary of the article. To see more information about an article, click its title to display the detailed record.
The record contains subject terms that describe the content of the article. You can use these subject terms to improve your search results. To read the full article, click one of the full text links on the left side. For this article, you have the option for either HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text. Some articles will only have one full-text option.
Both options include the full text of the article, but PDF full text is an exact copy of the article including the layout and any images, while HTML full text is a typed out version of the article.
A green Full Text Finder icon indicates that this article is available full text through another Tyree Library database. Click the link to be taken to the full text.
To the right of the detailed record or the full text of an article, is a Tools bar with various icons. You can print, e-mail, save, or cite this article using these icons.
For help citing the article, click the Cite icon, which looks like a gold paper and is found in the Tools bar. This will allow you to cite in APA, MLA, Chicago, and other citation styles. You will need to double-check all citations, as there are frequently errors with capitalization and punctuation.
If you choose to e-mail this article to yourself, you can include a citation as well. Choose your citation format from the drop-down menu on the right side.
This concludes the video tutorial on using Academic Search Complete. If you still have questions, please contact a librarian:
352-395-5409
reference@sfcollege.edu
Building Y, NW Campus
sfcollege.edu/library