Search Tips

Make full use of the ethnic group search field, either by using the dropdown selection or adding ethnic(Hispanic) or ethnic(Jewish) to your search string. (set values listed below) Each publication in Ethnic NewsWatch represents the viewpoint of an ethnic or minority group. Create your search and then simply switch the ethnic group designation to limit your results to the selected group. Explore different viewpoints and accomplish compare and contrast tasks easily with this search field.
The biographical(personal profiles) limiter is useful for locating articles that provide both encyclopedic information as well as more anecdotal material about a person's life. Simply check the limit results box on either the basic or advanced search page. You may also add SU(personal profiles) to your search string.
Since this is a full text database, you can look for words or phrases as they occur in the article text. Are issues reported in the same way in the ethnic press as it is in the mainstream press? Extensive full text searching allows you to examine how information is presented, for example text(affirmative action).
If you are looking for lengthy, in depth articles, make use of the word count limiter. WRD(>1000) finds articles containing 1000 words or more.
All articles are indexed. Use the subject terms to refine your search and combine the su term with keywords. SU(Hispanic Americans) AND NAFTA.
Choose Publication Search, select a title and browse through (or search within) issues.
Use "quotation marks" to search for exact phrases.
2 word queries (such as Alvin Ailey) are searched as an exact phrase by default.
3 word queries (such as Congressional Hispanic Caucus) are searched as words that need to appear in proximity to each other by default.
Use special characters and operators (below) to focus your query.

Learn About

Truncation and Wildcard Characters ?, *
Operators AND, OR, NOT ...
Search Field Syntax AU(...) for author
Stop Words the, an, of ...
Example Searches

Truncation and Wildcard Characters

The symbol * is used as a right-handed truncation character only; it will find all forms of a word.

For example, searching for econom* will find "economy", "economics", economical", etc.

The symbol ? is used to replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word.

? cannot be used to begin a word.

For example, searching for "wom?n" will find "woman" and "women." Searching for "t?re" will find "tire", "tyre", "tore", etc.

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Operators

Boolean, proximity and adjacency operators are used to broaden and narrow your search.

AND	Find all the words. Example: internet AND education
AND NOT	Find articles which have the first word, but not the second word. Example: Internet AND NOT html
OR	Find any of the words. Example: Internet OR intranet
WITHIN	Find articles where the first word appears some number of words before or after the second word. Example: computer W/3 careers
WITHIN DOC	Find articles where all the words appear within either the indexing or the article text. Example: Internet W/DOC education
NOT WITHIN	Find all words except this one within a field. Example: computer NOT W/2 careers
PRE	Find these words within n words in a field. Example: world pre/3 web

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Date (Numeric)
Ethnic Group
Geographical name / Location
Headnote
ISSN
Issue
Language
Pagination / Start Page

Personal Name
Publication Name
Source Type
Standard Number
Subject Terms
Volume
Word Count
Year

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Abstract

Search article abstracts for your terms.

Valid Forms:
    ABS
    AB
    ABSTRACT

Examples:
ABS(research agenda)

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Article Title

The title of an article, such as "Outlook for Indian Education in the Year 2001." This search field locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article.

Valid Forms:
TITLE
TI

Examples:
    TITLE(Outlook)
    TI(Indian AND education)
    TI("Outlook for Indian Education in the Year 2001")

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Article Type / Document Type / Form/Content Type

Use this search field to look for search words or phrases in articles of a certain type.

Valid Forms:
    AT
    TY
    DT

Examples:
    DTYPE(commentary)
    TY(editorial)
    AT(feature)
    DT(news)
    DTYPE(television review)

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Article Text

Searches only the full text of articles for your search terms.
Note: When searching article text, abstracts are not included in the search.
AND, OR, and other search operators are treated as such unless you enclose a phrase in quotes.

Valid Forms:
TEXT
TX

Examples:
TEXT(Kofi Annan)
TEXT(sari OR burka)

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Author

Use to find articles written by an author or reviewer. You may use either the author's full name or last name, first name format.

Valid Forms:
AUTHOR
AU

Examples:
AUTHOR(Mahmoud Awad)
AU(Adhikari, Ravi)

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Citation and Abstract

When you select Citations and abstracts from the drop-down menu, ProQuest searches the following fields:

Author
Personal Name
Abstract
Product Name
Article Title
Subject Terms
Company Name
Source (publication title)
Geographical Name

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Citation and Article Text

When you select Citation and article text, ProQuest searches within the complete text of the article, the citation fields, and the abstract.

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Company Name / Organization

Search for a company or other organization featured prominently in an article, including the following:
    Associations
    Companies
    Cooperatives
    Divisions of companies
    Governmental organizations
    Political parties
    Other organizations, such as professional sports teams, churches, Native American tribes, and music groups

Valid Forms:
    CO
    Company
    ORG

Examples:
    CO(Ford)
    Company(Black Enterprise)
    ORG(Congressional Hispanic Caucus)

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Date (Numeric)

The publication date in numeric format (mm/dd/yyyy). For example December 12, 1999 appears as 12/12/1999.

Valid Form:
   PDN
   DDT
   ND
   PD
   PDN
   XP

Example:
PDN(12/12/1999)

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Ethnic Group

Used to search Ethnic Group index. This field indicates which ethnic group the publication represents.

Use keyword(s) to search this field.

The set values for this field are:

African American/Caribbean/African
Arab/Middle Eastern
Asian/Pacific Islander
European/Eastern European
Hispanic
Jewish
Multi-Ethnic
Native People

Valid Forms:
ETHNIC

Examples:
"affirmative action" AND ETHNIC(Hispanic)

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Geographical name / Location

Use this search field to look for articles in which a geographical area or location figures prominently in the text.

Valid Forms:
    GEO
    GN
    LO
    LOC
    LOCATION
    GC

Examples:
    GEO(Midwest)
    GN(Cuba)
    GEO(South Africa)
    GN(Bagdad OR Baghdad)

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Headnote

This search field looks for search words that occur in the headnotes of an article. Headnotes are short introductions, explanations, or comments at the beginning of an article. They are different from abstracts in that they do not attempt to summarize the content of the article.

Valid Forms:
HEAD
HDN

Examples:
    HEAD(accidents)
    HDN(student*)
    HEAD(economy)

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ISSN

This search field looks for the eight-digit International Standard Serials Number (ISSN), where available. Hyphens are optional.

Valid Forms:
    ISSN
    SN
    ISN

Examples:
ISSN(0011-4664)
SN(00916358)

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Issue

Used to search Issue Number. Use keyword(s) to search this field.

Valid Forms:
ISSUE
IS

Examples:
IS(10)

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Language

Used to search Language index. This field contains the language in which the document was published originally. You can select languages from Language field specific index.

Valid Forms:
LA
LN

Examples:
LA(spanish)
LN(spanish or english)

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Pagination / Start Page

Use to search for specific pages of a publication. Useful for finding front page articles in newspapers.

Valid Forms:
    STARTPAGE
    PAG
    PAGE

Examples:
PAG(A1 OR 1A) AND PUB(LA Prensa) AND PDN(>1/01/1990 AND <12/31/2003)

For best search results, use the OR designation - A1 OR 1A, the newspaper citations vary in how the sections are represented.

This search string yields front page articles from La Prensa from January 1, 1990 through December 31, 2003.

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Personal Name

Use to find articles about a person. When the Personal Name field is displayed in an article citation, the life spans of historical figures follow their names.

You can enter the name in any format. Searching for NA(John A Smith) will return the same results as NA(Smith, John A).

Valid Forms:
    NAME
    NA
    PNM
    NM
    PER

Examples:
    NAME(Toni Morrison)
    NA(Putin, Vladimir)
    NM(Cesar Chavez)

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Publication Name / Journal Name

Used to search by a specific publication or publications.

Valid Forms:
    SOURCE
    SO
    JR
    JN
    JO
    SR
    PTI
    PUB

Examples:
    SO(La Opinion)
    SO(New York Amsterdam News or New Pittsburgh Courier)
    JO(Jewish) -- retrieves all periodicals with "Jewish" in their titles.

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Publishers Location

Used to search Place of Publication, Publisher Address and Producer Address index.

Use keyword(s) to search this field.

Valid Forms:
PL

Examples:
PL(spain)
PL(New York)

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Source Type

Use to include or exclude the following source types from your search: dissertations, newspapers, periodicals and wire feeds.

Valid Forms:
STYPE

Examples:
NA(Donna Shalala) AND STYPE(periodical)
GEO(Japan) AND STYPE(newspapers)

Note: The Diversity databases do not have dissertations or wire feeds as source types.

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Standard Number

Used to search ISSN and ISBN index. Use the hyphen when searching for ISSN. Search for ISBN without hyphens.

Valid Forms:
SNUM
SNO

Examples:
SN(1010-0652)
SN(0415102006)

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Subject Terms

Use the Subject search field to look for articles about a specific subject.

Valid Forms:
    SUB
    TERMS
    SB
    SU

Examples:
    SUB(international relations)
    SU(hostage negotiations)
    SU(Islam)

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Volume

Used to search Volume. Use keyword(s) to search this field.

Valid Forms:
    VOLUME
    VO
    VOL

Examples:
VO(100)

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Word Count

The number of words in the article text. Use this search field to locate articles under (<) or over (>) a certain length.

Valid Forms:
    WORDS
    WRD
    WD
    WC

Examples:
    WORDS(<1000) finds articles containing 1000 words or less
    WRD(>500) finds articles containing 500 words or more
    WC(>750 AND <1000) finds articles between 750 and 1000 words

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Year

Used to search Publication Year index.

Valid Forms:
YR
PY

Examples:
    YR(1986)
    YR(1986-1987)
    YR(>1998)
    YR(<1998)

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Stop Words

ProQuest ignores the following frequently-used words. To use them as part of a search phrase, enclose them with quotation marks: e.g. "the sound and the fury".

about	can	just	out	those
after	could	like	said	through
also	do	make	should	to
an	each	many	so	use
and	for	more	some	was
any	from	most	such	we
are	had	much	than	were
as	has	no	that	what
at	have	not	the	when
be	how	now	their	which
because	if	of	them	while
been	into	only	there	who
between	is	or	these	will
both	it	other	they	with
but	its	our	this	would
by

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Example Searches

The examples below illustrate the kinds of searches you can build in Basic Search or Advanced Search using operators and fields.

Content varies between ProQuest databases; therefore, the number of articles found using the examples below would vary.

diversity

Finds articles that contain the word diversity.

educat*

Finds articles containing the words; education, educator, educate, educating.

The "*" is the truncation symbol to find multiple forms of a word.

diversity AND ethnic studies

Finds articles that contain the word diversity and the phrase ethnic studies.

"Congressional Black Caucus"

Finds articles that contain the phrase Congressional Black Caucus.

Note: Always enclose phrases longer than two words in quotation marks.

sub(Hispanic American) AND Texas AND education

Finds articles about Hispanic Americans that mention Texas and education.

The subject search field will help you find articles that are about a particular subject.

The addition of keywords (in this case - Texas and education) allow you to focus your search more precisely.

ethnic(Arab/Middle Eastern) AND professional

Finds articles from the Arab/Middle Eastern presses that contain the word professional.

Use the Ethnic Group search field to find articles from different ethnic and minority presses.

author(Greg Mathis)

Finds articles written by Greg Mathis, national board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

There are two valid forms for an author search - Author or the abbreviation AU and the name may be inverted - ex. au(Mathis, Greg).

at(book review) AND name(Amy Tan)

Finds book reviews of works by Amy Tan.

Use the Article Type search field (at) to find different kinds of articles, including biographies, interviews, and recipes.

Note that dtype is also a valid syntax form for Article Type.

source(Black Enterprise) AND company(AT&T) AND PDN(>02/01/1988 AND <12/31/1998)

Finds articles from the magazine Black Enterprise about the company AT&T published between February 1, 1988 and December 31, 1998.

Use source to restrict your search to a specific newspaper or journal.

Use company to restrict to a specific company.

Use PDN to restrict to a specific date range.

at(movie review) AND "The Fighting Temptations"

Finds movie reviews of The Fighting Temptations.

stype(newspaper) AND at(obituary) AND Celia Cruz

Finds newspaper obituaries with Celia Cruz included in the text.

Stype limits to source type (in this case, newspapers) and at limits to article type (in this case, obituary) and Celia Cruz is searched as text.

This search returns both her own obituary and obituaries that mention her.

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