Quitman High School Library Media Center

Melanie Kemp, Library Media Specialist

August 2006

Locating Current Events

MAGNOLIA is a Web site funded by the Mississippi Legislature. The site provides a wealth of information FREE to Mississippi K-12 students (and Mississippi residents.)

A link to MAGNOLIA is located on the “quick link” pages for students, parents, and teachers of all QSD school Web sites.

No password is needed when MAGNOLIA is accessed through any Mississippi public school or public library. To access the site from home you will need to click ACCESS RESOURCES FROM HOME (on the far right hand side of the home page) and enter a username/password. Your teacher or librarian can provide you with the username/password.

Conducting a search for a magazine or newspaper article

Click EBSCOhost on the left hand side
Check the database(s) you wish to search using the following guidelines and then click continue:

(When choosing only one database, you can click the name of that database to continue.)

General research – try using just ONE of the following: MAS Ultra, Academic Search, or MasterFILE (you may want to add Newspaper Source depending on the type of sources you are seeking)

General research – depending on your topic you may want to try Book Collection: Nonfiction and the History Reference Center

General Science – try only General Science Collection or only MAS Ultra (and also Book Collection: Nonfiction)

Specific sciences – Select one or more of the following based on the descriptions given on the Web site: Environment Complete; Garden, Landscape & Horticulture; Health Source; Psychology and Behavioral Sciences; Agrigola

Newspaper articles only – Newspaper source

For Allied Health related research – try only Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition

Career related – try only Vocational and Career Collection

History research – History Reference Center and/or Book Collection: Nonfiction

Junior high students - recommend Middle Search Plus

Elementary students – recommend Primary Search

Encyclopedias – Funk & Wagnalls (or on the MAGNOLIA main page choose Grolier Products)

Drugs & medicines – Pharmacology

Native North Americans – try the Bibliography of Native North Americans (be SURE to check full text)

Business related topics – Regional Business News and Business Source Complete

Computers & technology – Computer Source

Environmental issues – Environment Complete

Agriculture – Agricola

Government related – check the Legal Collection, it may have something relevant to what you are studying

Current events – try TOPICsearch

***If you include an INDEX or ABSTRACT database in your search, checking FULL TEXT is very, very important. Index databases and abstract databases may or may NOT include full text articles.

*Keep in mind that the more databases you check, the more results you’ll get which is not necessarily a good thing!

On the next screen:

· In the FIND box enter the topic of your search

· Check FULL TEXT

· Enter specific dates if that is a requirement for your assignment

· Click Search

Saving your search results for future use

1. After you have clicked SEARCH and have results, click SIGN IN TO MY EBSCOhost.

Click I’M A NEW USER and complete the required fields.
When you’re done, you’ll be taken back to your search results screen.
Now you may add items to your folder by clicking ADD at the end of line for each result item; to see your folder items click FOLDER HAS ITEMS; you may select SAVE to save your folder items for a future session!

Printing search results

To conserve paper and ink, print using one of the following options:

To print from the MAGNOLIA screen
- To select articles to print, click the ADD button on the far right hand side of your results list
- When all articles to be printed have been “ADDED”, click FOLDER HAS ITEMS located on the upper right hand side of the screen underneath the green menu bar and above your search results.
- Select EMAIL, SAVE or PRINT (you may want to uncheck “remove articles after printing” just in case)
- To print, click PRINT. The print box will AUTOMATICALLY come up and you may EITHER print or choose CANCEL if you want to view the articles before they print. (If you choose to CANCEL, you may view your articles and then choose to print the usual way.)
- To email the articles to yourself or someone else (maybe to print on someone else’s printer!) click EMAIL. You’ll need to enter the destination email address. The subject and comments box are optional. If you are ever emailing Mrs. Kemp something to print, type YOUR name in the subject line or your job will be deleted.
- To save your result to a disk or to your hard drive, click SAVE.

B. Copy and paste into Word

Open a Word document and set the top, bottom, left and right margins to 0.5” (under file, page setup)
Change the font to Times New Roman and font size to 10 pt (under format, font)
Be sure to copy and paste the Web address and then copy and paste your articles or just the bits and pieces you need (if copying bits and pieces make sure you copy and paste the bibliography information to go with each bit and piece)

C. Print selected text only

· When you do not need the entire article, select (highlight) the text you do need

· Click FILE, PRINT, and CHECK “selection” to print only what you have highlighted

SEARCHING TECHNIQUES

Searching techniques are unique to each database or search engine. What works for Google may not work with Yahoo and what works with EBSCOhost may not work with Google or Yahoo. Most search engines and databases have HELP sections that will indicate how they interpret Boolean operators and may also offer search tips. The following search techniques are for EBSCOhost.

Boolean Operators

AND drunk and driving results contain the word drunk and the word driving, but not necessarily the

phrase “drunk driving”

OR drunk or driving results contain at least one of these words, but not necessarily both of them (if you are

searching for articles on “drunk driving”, then using OR is not for you)

NOT drunk not driving results contain drunk but not driving

NOT driving NOT drunk results contain driving but not drunk (if you want articles related to driving and didn’t want any of them to be about “drunk driving”)

Truncation (*)

Enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with * (no space before the *)

driv* results include drive, driver, driving, drives, etc.

Singular vs. plural

Unless you are specifically looking for the plural form of a word, always enter the singular form. The singular form will locate both singular and plural forms. Using the plural form of a word normally yields results with ONLY the plural form of the word.

drivers results include drivers but not driver

driver results include driver and drivers

“ “ Quotation Marks

If you are looking for a specific phrase, put quotation marks around the phrase to yield results where the words appear in that exact sequence.

“drunk driving” results contain the exact phrase “drunk driving”, the words appear back to back

drunk driving results may contain both words, but not necessarily both words and not necessarily those

two words back to back

Proximity

“N” represents the “near operator” and using “N” will locate words if they are within a certain number of words of one another.

drunk N5 driving results may include “driving while you are drunk” and “driving drunk” and “drunk

driving” since the words appear within five words of each other in all three phrases

“W” represents the “within operator” and using “W” will locate words if they within a certain number of words of each other AND in the same order.

drunk W5 driving results may include “drunk while driving”

but would not include “driving while you are drunk” (“drunk” should appear first)

results may include “drunk driving”

but would not include “driving drunk” (“drunk” should appear first)