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Screenshots of Resources Used For The B421 Research Project
Return to the Main BLAW-301 Research Project Page
Using The ABI/Inform Topic Guide
1. Enter your search term into the search box on the topic guide page. We'll use "ethics" as the search term in this example. Click on "Find Term" to begin the search.
2. Review the suggested topic terms generated by ABI/Inform. Here are some examples from the list produced by the search above:
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For any of the topic listed you can either click on "View" to immediately review articles on this particular aspect of the topic "ethics" or you can click on "Narrow" to see more specific topics on that subject. For example, if you click on "Narrow" for the term "ethics", you'll see new subjects such as "corporate responsibility" or "professional standards". |
Using ABI/Inform to Search Topics Directly
1. It would be a good idea to make sure you are searching all
three variants of ABI, which include Global, Trade & Industry, and Business
Dateline. To make sure you are searching all three click on this link on the
main search screen of either ProQuest or ABI:
2. When you click on this link you'll find yourself on the
ProQuest database selection page. Just click on the three versions of ABI
mentioned above and then click "continue". When you return to the search page,
you should see this:
Note: If your "databases selected" are anything other than what is shown here, go back to the database selection page and try again.
3. After you have the correct databases selected, select the advanced search. Here is an example of a search to find articles about the use of e-mail in the workplace that has involved or led to litigation. Please note that the use of "employ*" with the asterisk is an example of search truncation (where * is the truncation or wildcard symbol) This find all variants on the word employ, such as employee, employer, employment, etc. Also, note that for the term litigation, the index has been changed to "subject". That's because in the ABI database, litigation is an official subject heading - using it will help make the search more specifi.
4. Here are some example of articles from the search:
Return to the Main B421 Research Project Page
Using Emerald To Retrieve Articles
1. After you connect to Emerald, in the upper right corner of the screen you'll see this box - click on the icon that for "Fulltext".
2. That will take you to the main search interface for Emerald but we recommend you use the advanced search so click on that link ("Advanced Search")
3. Below you see the advanced search interface (multiple search boxes) with a search to find article about ethics (or ethical) in management. The search field boxes are dropboxes, and you can change the search options (e.g., search all text).
4. Your search will result in the display of articles that should be related to your search topic.
5. Use the box below (it will appear on the "abstract" page - which you get to by clicking on the title of the article) to get to the full text of the article in html or pdf format.
Return to the Main B421 Research Project Page
Using WorldCatTo Locate Books in Worldcat
1. From the FirstSearch Home Page, click on WorldCat
2. Enter terms into the search interface as shown below. Note that the search uses the term "ethic*" with the asterisk. That is an example of truncation, a technique to find all the word variants on the root of a word. The search retrieves ethic, ethics, and ethical.
3. After the search button is clicked WorldCat will display the books that are related to your topic. Note that the one in the screenshot shown below would be found at the Gutman Library.
4. To get additional information about any book, just click on the title of the book to see an expanded record.
Return to the Main B421 Research Project Page
Using Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe To Locate Legal Cases
1. From the home page of Academic Universe, select "Legal Research".
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You'll see this menu of search forms on the left side of the Academic Universe home page. |
2. From the next screen select "Federal Case Law"
3. On the next screen, the search template, enter your search terms as shown below and drop the box for "courts" to select the appropriate court. "District" will search federal court cases. You can also choose "Supreme Court". Lexis/Nexis can also search court cases by plaintiff and defendant names also. You may also want to change the date from "previous year" to something further back in time.
4. The result of this search is too broad - it retrieves 967 cases. We need to narrow that down.
5. On the results screen go to the FOCUS search box at the top (shown below). This illustrates the use of the ATLEAST command to find only those cases that mention e-mail or email at least five times.
6. Just by using the atleast command, it reduces the results significantly to 264 cases, and each case will have more references to email in it.
7. Review cases (I would recommend using KWIC mode - so you can get a brief portion of each case's text to review) to identify those that can be used in the assignment.