24 STEPS

1. Welcome! This tutorial will cover some of the basics of navigating Central Search! Central Search can be found on the Home page of our website and on the Databases tab. Click anywhere on the screen to continue.

2. You can search Central Search directly from our website by using the embedded search bar.

3. You can also indicate that you want full text or peer-reviewed articles.

4. If you want to try a more complex search, you can click Advanced Search.

5. Advanced Search offers three search bars as a default, but you can use fewer or add more as needed.

6. Select a Field is the default setting for the search fields. This means that Central Search will search the entire text for the keywords you enter.

7. If you prefer to limit where to search for the keywords, you can change this option to AU Author to search only in the author field, TI Title to search in the title of resources, or etc.

8. If you scroll down, you will find several additional limiters. For example, you can limit your results to only academic (peer-reviewed) journals.

9. You can also limit your results to full text articles.

10. You can search for a specific journal name.

11. You can also search for resources published within a particular date range.

12. When you conduct a search on Central Search, you will see a page similar to this. Click anywhere on the screen to continue.

13. At the top of the page, you can see the number of search results returned. That is one large number, right!?!

14. To the left, there are a series of options available for you to limit or refine the search so that you see fewer but more relevant results!

15. You can use the Limit To options to find results with specific characteristics, such as full text or peer-reviewed.

16. You can limit by Publication Date by manually typing years or sliding the blue boxes on the bar.

17. Limit by Source Type allows you to restrict your search to only specific formats. If you are working on an assignment for a class, make sure to take note of any requirements that are in place for the sources that you use.

18. There are a number of additional limiters that can be used to narrow or refine your search, so take a look around and try to find what works best for your search.

19. Now, lets take a look at a Central Search record. What we are seeing here is called a bibliographic record. Essentially, it is just the documentation of the relevant information about the article, such as its source, author, and abstract.

20. To the left of the record is the article's availability. This article is available in PDF Full Text, meaning we could download it right now and read it if we needed to.

21. To the right of the record are Central Search Tools. These tools are helpful for saving and interacting with a resources found in Central Search.

22. E-mail is a helpful tool because it allows you to email yourself, or a research partner, a PDF full-text copy of an article, a citation, and the article's permalink.

23. Cite will generate a citation for the article in whatever format you choose. This functionality is not perfect, however, so be sure to check the citation for accuracy.

24. There are many more tools included in Central Search, but Permalink, Email, and Cite are the three most commonly used. Take some time to explore Central Search and try out its functionality. Contact a librarian if you need assistance!