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Education Research Guide

A research guide to help students in Education

Navigating your Search Results

Navigating your Search Results

After you hit the search button and get to the search results page. Take a moment to review the number of results you retrieved. While you might have the perfect number of results, it is far more common to have either too few or too many results. This is normal and expected. Remember, research is a process. You will almost always need to return to previous steps in the process and attempt new search strategies.

  • Not enough results? Try going back and adjusting your search terms (try new terms, make your topic broader, or search in broader fields)
  • Too many results? This is the most common. When this happens, you will often need to go back and adjust your search terms (search more specific fields, narrow your topic, or add more search terms). But you can also use the limiters (or filters) to focus your search. The interactive image below goes over how to use these limiters and other helpful tools on this page.

 

Interactive Image of the Search Results webpage (Academic Search Premier)

Navigating the Search Results Page: Filtering your Results

After you hit the search button and get to the search results page, take a moment to review the number of results you retrieved. While you might have the perfect number of results, it is far more common to have either too few or too many results. This is normal and expected. Research is a process and you will need to go back and try new search strategies often. The information below lists many common features of Search Results pages. These features are listed below and the screenshot underneath provides a visual of Academic Search Premiere's search results page.

  • Search Results: Take a moment to review how many results your search returned. Sometimes your search is too broad or too specific and this can lead to having too many or too few search results. When this happens you should try adjusting your search terms and/or apply limiters (described below). You will almost always need to return to previous steps in the process and attempt new search strategies.
  • Limiters: Do you have too many results? Narrow your search results by selecting limiters located in a column on the left-hand side of the screen. You can narrow your search by selecting the limiters that we discussed on the advanced search screen section (such as date, peer reviewed, and source type). However, there are other limiters available now such as subject headings. The limiters are great ways to gather future search terms and learn the vocabulary of your research field.
  • Share: Is this a great search but you don't have time to look over your results? That's okay, just click Share and copy the permalink to return to this page in the future. Remember that with databases, bookmarking the webpage or copying the URL will expire. So be sure to record and save your search information often.
  • PDF Full Text vs JSBLink: Underneath the records on the screenshot below you will see either a PDF Full Text link or a JSBLink. The PDF Full Text link means that the database has the full text of this item. The JSBLink means that the database only has information about the item and not the full text. Click the JSBLink to search all 200+ library databases for this item. If it's available the next webpage will provide a link to the database, if it's not the webpage will prompt you to request it through the Interlibrary Loan system. Accessing materials the library does not own will be covered in more depth in the next page of this module.

 

Screenshot of the Search Results Webpage (Academic Search Premier)

A screenshot of the Academic Search Premier's search results page. The visual is described in the text above.