Ebsco's Primary Source

What is this database used for?

Ebsco's Primary Source is a very useful database for the research fields of many broad subjects. It has full text for nearly 70 popular magazines. Each full text article has been assigned a reading level indicator, or lexiles, and the information dates back to 1990. This database is used mostly for news occurring in the last 2 decades and has updated information from the last month, if not sooner. It is used primarily by grades 1-12. It is an easy to use database for general research, but if you wanted specific results on a certain field of research, this might not be the best choice. To get to this database you must go to the URL:

Ebsco's Primary Source

Once you have gotten there you have many options of what to do. On the top of the page, you have four clickable tabs. They are Basic Search, Advanced Search, Visual Search, and Choose Databases

Basic Search

This is the simplest way to research your topic. Under the basic search tab, you have five choices. keyword, subjects, publications, dictionary, and images.

• The keyword choice shows you all articles containing your search terms. This is good for finding broad subjects.
• The subject search displays articles with your search in the title. This is good for finding articles entirely about your subject.
• The publication search lets you search for your topic by specific articles. This is useful if you had an assignment over an event that occurred at a point in time.
• The dictionary search lets you look up most any word.
• The image search helps you find images that relate to your topic.

You are presented with two text boxes in the top left of the screen. The second box is what database you are working with. Keep it in primary search for this topic. If you knew what research field you wanted to search in, you could change it for more specific information about your topic. The first box is where you would type to search for your topic. Let's say you are assigned to find out about space. If you just typed "space" under the keyword tab and clicked search, you would get over 3000 results. You need to narrow this down to

be able to find what exactly what you are looking for. To do this you should type a more specific search such as "comets" or "satellites". That should greatly narrow your search.

Refine Your Search

Another way to narrow your results down would be to use the advanced search. Under the keyword option, there is a refine search under the search box. Be sure that the refine search tab is selected if you have just searched for a topic. You can limit your results by date, number of pages, publication type, reading level, and other specific limiters. But if you have searched for a topic that doesn't have very many results, there are also some expander options. These help add to the results of your search and are right under the limiters.

Keep the information

Once you have found your article(s), there are many things you can do. You can print the article, e-mail it to yourself or someone else, save it, or add it to a folder that will group all of your articles together.

All you have to do is click on the options on the top of the article.

Other Options

Other options that you can do are listed at the bottom of your selected article. If it is a full text document, there is a link to open the original document. And if you are going to use the information gathered for a project, there is a link to use that gives you the citation for the article.

Review

I think that this database is very easy and user friendly. It helps you quickly search for your topic, get the information easily, and is very clear on the different ways to search for your topic. You could use this database for almost all of your classes and it would be a good place to start on a research paper.

Extra Help

One of the good things about this database is if this overview wasn't perfectly clear, there is a help button at the top of the page. It has a more detailed explanation on how to use it.

By Miles Bratton