ERIC

The Education Resources Information Center (http://www.eric.ed.gov) provides the public with a centralized ERIC Web site for searching the ERIC bibliographic database of more than 1.1 million citations going back to 1966. More than 107,000 full-text non-journal ERIC documents (issued 1993-2004) are now available for free.

Basic Search

Construct a simple Boolean search using AND, OR, or NOT in a single entry box. If multiple words are entered without a Boolean operator, the default is AND. e.g. male female searches for male AND female.

Use quotation marks around a phrase to find an exact match. e.g. "elementary education" narrows a search to only those records containing the phrase elementary education.

Advanced Search

The pull down window through the advanced search screen gives you options to search by document title/author/ERIC #, etc.

The connectors (AND/OR/NOT) are provided through the pull down window to make it convenient for multiple entries.

You can limit your search further by choosing full-text only/publication range/type.

ERIC Thesaurus

The Thesaurus is a tool for finding documents relevant to a searcher's area of interest.
Before searching the ERIC Thesaurus, take a few minutes to define your search using the following steps:

1. Describe the topic in your own words.
2. Divide the topic into major concepts.
3. Use the Thesaurus to locate the appropriate descriptors for each concept of the topic.

You can either search for a specific word or phrase, or use one of the browsing options, to locate a descriptor. Browsing is a fast and simple way to identify appropriate search terms for finding documents in the ERIC database. Users can browse the Thesaurus alphabetically or by category.

ERIC Digests

The entire file of ERIC Digests is available online. To search the ERIC database for the digests, go to the Advanced Search screen. Enter your search term(s) and select ERIC Digests in Full Text as the Publication Type.

Citing ERIC

To cite ERIC in APA style, take a look at this site, or follow this format:

Author, A. A. (1996). Title of ERIC document (Report No. AB-12). City, ST: Sponsoring Entity. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 123 456)

e.g. Badden, M. R. (1992). A revised syllabus for Pig Latin in public schools (Report No. BZ4X). Mudsock, OH: Ohio State Association for Excellence in Pig Latin Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 678 342)

To include a URL for an ERIC Document in a bibliography, use
http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EDxxxxxx
where EDxxxxxx represents the accession number of a document, e.g., ED456789.

Journals Indexed in ERIC

For a full list of journal titles indexed in ERIC, click HERE.

June Cheng
Education Librarian

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