Basic Search in Gale Virtual Reference Library

Here's how to perform a Basic Search in Gale Virtual Reference Library:

If you're not already at the Basic Search page, click Basic Search from the search path bar
Enter one or more words in the Find input box
Select a search option by clicking one of the radio buttons below the Find box: document title, keyword or entire document
Click the Search button
When documents are found that match your search criteria, the results list will be displayed; otherwise you will get a message asking you to revise your search

Alternatively, from the Basic Search page you may choose to browse a specific eBook publication in its entirety. And if enabled by your library, you may be able to click on the Credo Reference link at the bottom of the Basic Search page to find even more online resources.

Basic Search by Document Title

The Document title option of Basic Search lets you search for words in the title/headline of an article or document. The title of an article will generally be the topic of an essay (e.g. subject matter, person name, name of an organization, etc.), so this is generally a good search to use if you are looking for a particular subject. This is also a good search to use if you only know part of the title you are looking for.

Basic Search by Keyword

The Keyword option of Basic Search is the default search option. The Keyword option searches significant fields in documents, including titles, introductory text, and authors. It also searches the first 50 words in the article as well as back-of-the-book index terms that have been assigned to articles. This option searches a broader range of fields than more specific, individual fields such as the document title.

Basic Search by Entire Document

The Entire document option of Basic Search looks for any word or words within the complete text of all documents in the database, as well as in the fields of information included in the Keyword search. This is a good search to use if you are looking for a particular line of text or an unusual phrase.

Basic Search by Subject

The Subject option of Basic Search looks for your search term(s) within the indexed subject headings. This is a good search to use when beginning your research or when you want to search for topics such as academic disciplines, companies, events, laws, geographic locations, organizations, people, and so on.

To search directly within the hierarchical list of subject terms developed by Gale editors, known as the Subject Guide, perform a Subject Guide Search.

Using Operators and Wildcards in Your Search

You may use logical (Boolean) operators, proximity operators and wildcard characters in a Basic Search. Note that when searching the Keyword or Entire Document index, entering two or more search terms without any logical operators between terms is the same as using the N4 proximity operator. So that a search on cats dogs is the same as entering cats N4 dogs. When searching the Document Title index, the system automatically uses the N2 operator between search terms. Refer to more examples on how the system searches for phrases.