A-Z Databases: EBSCOhost Research Platform

You can access the EBSCO Research platform, and any specific databases held on the platform by clicking the link below

Select the 'Access via your institution' option then enter your student, or staff, email address and password when prompted.

Learn how to perform an advanced search in databases on the EBSCOhost Research Platform.

EBSCO Tutorials (2019) Creating an advanced search - tutorial. Available at: https://youtu.be/DjKNxqiuwpY  (Accessed: 10 November 2020).

Advanced Search

Typing a sentence into a search engine or database will not search resources effectively.

Consider the key words and/ or phrases that describe what you want to search (e.g. social care).

Enter these in the search boxes provided.

You can use various search techniques to add in extra terms, combine multiple topics, narrow results down and get more useful results.  These include:

• Phrase search - including the terms in quotation marks to ensure they appear together (e.g. "home care").
• Boolean search:
  • AND (+) - narrows down the results. All connected terms must be included in the results (e.g. health AND exercise).
  • OR (|) - broadens out the results. Either connected term can be included in the results (e.g. educating OR teaching OR training).
  • NOT (-) narrows down the results. The second term must be excluded from the results (e.g. dementia NOT senile).
• Truncation symbol * can be helpful but should be used with caution.  For example, nurs* will find nurse, nurses and nursing ... but also nursery.

Use the available filters, e.g. to the left of your results list, to refine your search by date range, language or content type, among others.

Extending the search beyond full text items

Some of the databases, e.g. CINAHL Complete, offer full text results by default.  Abstracts or references for many more articles are available by deselecting the "Also search within the full text of the articles" option.

Some of these articles may be accessible in full via the listed 'Check Primo OneSearch for availability' links. 

For others, a free copy may be available on the internet provided under an open access arrangement. Use Google Scholar  or Open Access Button to check. Type in one author's surname and add the title of the article in quotation marks (to look for the words in the same order). If the article is freely available, you will see a PDF or HTML notation beside the citation.

You may also be able to get the article by requesting an Inter Llibrary Loan (ILL).

• Saving items for access at a later date

  • To save specific articles, or your searches, for viewing in later search sessions, sign up for a personal folder.  See EBSCO's Create a personal account  video for details.  

• Searching multiple databases simultaneously

  • To amend your selection of databases within your search session, click the 'Choose databases' option, above the search boxes then confirm.  To re-run a search using the new database, select 'Search history' to display searches run that session then choose 'Rerun'.

• Referencing

  • Click the article's title then select the 'Permalink' option to generate an accessible URL to include in your reference list.  Alternatively, click the 'Cite' option then view the relevant entry, e.g. 'Harvard'.  [The default URL is customised to a user session so generates error messages whenever used by another user.]
• Follow EBSCO Publishing on Twitter - @EBSCO
• For more guidance on using EBSCO's services, watch videos on EBSCO Tutorials YouTube channel.

For tips on using specific databases within the EBSCOhost Research Platform, please see the following:

Accessibility Statement

This work in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.