Module 4
Proquest
How to Access Proquest
How to Search Proquest

Contents:
Introduction
Module 1: How to Solve an Information Problem
Module 2: Search Techniques
Module 3: SD Library Network
Module 5: Infotrac
Module 6: Lexis-Nexis
Module 7: OCLC Firstsearch
Module 8: 
Module 9: 
Module 10: 
Module 11: Internet Searching
Module 12: Evaluating Internet sources
Module 13: Scholarly vs. Popular
Module 14: Citing sources
Module 15: How to Get Material Not Available Online

Module 4: How to Search Proquest

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After accessing Proquest, follow these instructions to search Proquest. 

 1.  You may  do a "Basic Search" on this screen or you may select another type of search from the "Search Methods" drop-down menu at the top of the screen. If you choose to do a Guided search, you will have more search options to help you specify the results you want.

4. In a Basic search, 

• enter words that describe the topic in the search box.
  Examples, 
  alternative medicine
  English language
  euthanasia 
• select a specific publication type or leave "all" selected
• leave the "search in" selection as "citations and abstracts"  (and switch to search in "article text" only if very few or no articles have been found)
• note that you can click on checkboxes to limit the results to full-text articles and/or to limit results to articles published in peer-reviewed journals
• click on the "show total number of articles" checkbox so that you will be able to tell exactly how many articles your search found (if you don't, it will just say "at least 50 articles matched your search.")
• click on the "search" button 

5.  In a Guided search

• enter words that describe the topic in the search boxes.
• select where the words should be searched or leave "Basic Fields" selected.
• select the appropriate boolean operator (and / or / and not, etc.) to connect the search boxes if using more than one search box
• change "article type," "publication type," and "date range" if you wish
• note that you can click on checkboxes to limit to full-text articles and/or peer-reviewed articles and to choose to show total number of articles
• click on the "search" button

6.  The following search techniques may be used in Proquest:

a.  Operators

AND specifies that a matching record must contain both words on either side of the operator.  Example:  
microwaves and cooking

OR specifies that a matching record must contain one or the other or both words on either side of the operator.  Example:
leaf or leaves

AND NOT specifies that a matching record must contain the first word but must not contain the second.  Example:
guns and not hunting

b.  Wildcards: ? (question mark)

the question mark (?) stands for any number of characters (for example, educat? retrieves educate, education, etc.) 

c.   Proximity searching (how close together the
search words are to each other):

• Phrase searching 

2-word phrases -- just type the phrase.  Example:
global warming

more-than-two-word phrases -- place quotes around the phrase.  Example:
"attention deficit hyperactivity disorder"

• Words near each other

W/N (WITHIN) requires that a word or phrase be within a specified number of words of another word or phrase. For example: 
computer W/3 careers

NOT W/N (NOT WITHIN) requires that a word or phrase be at least a specified number of words away from a second specified word or phrase. For example: 
computer NOT W/2 careers

PRE/N (PRECEDE BY) requires that the first specified word or phrase precede a second by a specified number words. For example: 
world PRE/3 web

 

END OF MODULE 4. 
Continue to next page to begin MODULE 5.

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