MLA Bibliography Brief Search Guide

MLA is set to do a Keyword Search--use this option to search for terms, topics, or literary authors. Enter a word (e.g. mango), writer, (e.g. Dickens), or phrase (e.g. Red Badge of Courage) in the text box. MLA displays your results in the bottom half of the screen. The total number of results is displayed in the Search History box at the top of the screen.

If your first search retrieved too many records, or too many off topic records, then use a Boolean AND in order to retrieve only those items that include both terms (e.g. Dickens AND class). You can also AND together two or more previous searches by clicking the  combine icon at the top of the screen.

III.Want More Records?

If your first search retrieved too few records, then use a Boolean OR to retrieve items that contain either or both terms (e.g. wom?n OR gender). You can also OR together two or more previous searches by clicking the Combine icon at the top of the screen.

To find common plurals and other variants, add a dollar sign ($) at the end of the root. For example, the search industr$ would retrieve the words "industry", "industrial", "industrious", and so forth.

IV. Viewing Results

MLA displays your results in the bottom. To increase the size of the display area, click the blue Display button next to the appropriate search set in the Search History box.

Create a list of marked records by ticking the check boxes beside article records. At any point you can e-mail, print, or download these marked records by scrolling down to the Results Manager box at the bottom of the screen.

V. Limit Your Search

You can limit your search to English-language articles, or to articles from peer-reviewed journals. These limits can be selected before searching, and are located beneath the main search box. More limits are available by clicking on the Limit icon at the top of the screen.

VI. Field Searching

MLA allows you to search for your terms in specific fields. To do field searching, click the Search Fields icon at the top of the screen, or use the special Author and Title search screens by clicking their respective icons. The three most common fields to search are Title, Author, and Subject.

• Title searching finds articles that contain your search terms in the title.
• 
• Author searching finds articles written by your author. It is best to begin searching last name only (e.g. McArthur). This field does not search for authors of literary works.
• 
• Subject searching is somewhat problematical.

VII. Article Types

MLA allows you to limit your search to particular kinds of publications (e.g. Book, Book Article, Journal Article, Dissertation Abstract) on your topic. Publication types can be found by clicking on the Limit icon at the top of the search screen.

VIII. Advanced Searching Reference Guide

Truncation

           $ (Unlimited Truncation)
           $n (Limited Truncation: e.g. home$1 retrieves "home" or "homes", but not "homely")

Optional Character Wildcard

          ?

Required Character Wildcard

          #

Boolean Operators

          AND, OR, NOT

Proximity Operators

          ADJ (Specified Order)

Default Operator

          ADJ

Fields Searched by Default

          Title and Subject Headings

Command Line Limits

         Limit Set Numbers
         limit 1 to yr=1999-2001
         limit 1 to yr=1999
         limit 1 to lg=english
         limit 1 to pr=yes (for peer reviewed journal articles)

Command Line Field Searches

         x.au. searches term x in author field (word and phrase indexed)
         x.ti. searches term x in title field (word indexed)
         x.ti,hw. searches term x in title and subject fields (word indexed)
         Note: the sh (subject heading) field is phrase indexed only.