HELP Screens

All research databases provide HELP SCREENS for their users. Not all are of the best quality, but it is always advisable to look at these. We are all in a hurry when we are doing our assignments, and it seems like a bother to use HELP SCREENS, but often, just by spending a few minutes with them, you can end up saving hours of time. All databases have variations from the rest. If you try to do a search using one method because it worked in the last database you used, you might have difficulty retrieving the right information in the next database. That is where the HELP SCREEN will save you time. It will tell you what, if any, fields you can search. It will tell you whether or not you need to capitalize your Boolean operators when you search. It will tell you whether you can use the NOT operator, or whether you have to use AND NOT instead. Most importantly, a good HELP SCREEN will have information on the scope and other search capabilities. By scope, we mean, for example, what dates or subjects it covers.