Drain-Jordan Library - Help guide to Gale Databases, West Virginia State University
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Help: Academic One File (Gale)



Searching Academic One File Searching Academic One File
Academic One File is part of a family of periodicals databases and e-book titles. We subscribe to Literature Criticism Online, Something About the Author Online, and Academic One File, from Gale. Like Ebscohost, the Gale resources are available both on campus and from off-campus through the Library's website. To access Academic One File from Off-campus follow these steps:

  1. Open your browser to he Drain-Jordan Library homepage: (http://library.wvstateu.edu/) or access the library page from the top of the university server (http://www.wvstateu.edu)
  2. Hover over "Research Tools" in the dropdown menu at the top of the page and roll down it to "Database Journal Articles." Select it.
  3. On the new page that appears, Academic One file is the first link (red brick color) that appears. (ON campus click here)
  4. If you are off campus, you need to click on the small box at the end of of the database's description which says "off campus access" in red. This takes you to a WVSU server which validates you as WVSU student, faculty and staff and after confirmation passes you on to the vendor. For confirmation:

    Enter as your username the first part of your email address (everything before the @) and the password you use campus email. Warning: the most common mistake for off campus users is entering the full email address, instead of just the part before the @.

Subject Searches & Item Retrieval:

Once you have chosen your database, decide what type of search you want. A subject search is the most common one. Make sure to keep what you type in the 'subject' box as simple as possible. After you have entered your subject, you may want to qualify your search * After you have filled in the qualifications, point-click to the "search" button. The database will take you to the nearest point in Gale/InfoTrac's subject-heading system. You will have the option of either viewing the whole list, or looking at a list of subheadings. Unless there are very few articles under the main subject heading, you will want to use the subheading option. Follow the prompts to the citations. Whenever you see an article that seems interesting, fill in the check box next to it. When you have finished selecting your articles, click on the words "View Mark List" on the left side of the screen. Look over the list, and uncheck anything which you do not, after all, want. Select, as available, 'citation' or 'full text' (See Below*). Then click either where it says "Submit Print Request" or "Submit E-Mail Request." You may either print out the items at the library for 10¢ a page, or, if you have an e-mail account, have them e-mailed to you, and print them from home. Some articles only have a citation; some have a citation and an abstract (one-paragraph summary); some have a citation, and abstract, and full-text. For those articles which do not have full-text, you may check the Journals By Title (under the Research Tools tab) to see if we carry that particular journal. If we do not, you may order your articles through Interlibrary Loan (under the Library Services tab).

Other Searches: While a Subject search is the most commonly-used and useful type of search, there are other searches which might be more suited to your needs: Relevance, Keyword, and Advanced searches:

Relevance: If the word or words you are looking for are not one of Academic One File's subject headings, you may be able to find useful articles by this means. You will get less "garbage" if you restrict the search to finding the word or words you want in the title, citation, or abstract.
Keyword: The main difference between this and Relevance is that you can use AND, OR and NOT to combine two or more words.  (E.g. "Music NOT Jazz") [Note: One need not use all-caps for the combiners.]
Advanced: This is most useful when your main criterion is other than subject; if, for example, you are looking for articles by a certain person, or in a certain journal. As in Keyword, you may use combiners.
Retrieval procedures are the same for all four search modes; and you may add to your Mark List while jumping back and forward between search modes.
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*What do we mean by "qualification"? Look at the screen. You will see that "you have the option of restricting your search to full-text articles"; not all of the articles in the database have full text--some have only a citation, some have the citation and an abstract. For those articles which are not full text, you will have to check the Periodical Holdings List to see if we carry that magazine or (if we do not) to request an interlibrary loan (ILL). Another option is to restrict the search to refereed publications. Refereed publications are scholarly journals which have each submitted article reviewed by a panel of subject experts. Accordingly, such journals are considered more authoritative than others. You also have the option of restricting to publications within a certain range of dates; this is especially important if you are researching a scientific or technical subject for which older information may no longer be valid. You can also restrict your search to one or more journals; this is especially useful if you are attempting to find an article you have seen before, but cannot remember exactly where. Finally, you can qualify your search to entries containing specific words; this is useful if you are looking for a topic which does not fit neatly into Gale/InfoTrac's subject heading system.