Mendham 1

College Composition I

Finding Sources in the Computer Lab—Exercise

The purpose of this exercise is to give you practice using the academic databases available through the NHCTC library website. Together we’ll go through the steps of using EBSCOhost to find the kind of sources you can use in Essay 3, and you’ll work in pairs to find articles relevant to your planned essay topics. First go through the steps below for one member of your team, and then for the other.

  1. At the computer, start Internet Explorer; it should open to the NHCTC-Claremont webpage. (If it doesn’t, go to
  2. Click on Library(
  3. Click on EBSCOhost-Find journal articles (
  4. Enter the User ID you received in class.
  5. Click on EBSCOhost Web
  6. Click the checkbox next to Academic Search Premier, then click the Continue button
  7. Type a search term in the Find box. Make sure that the Full Text checkbox below is checked, and then click the Search button.
  8. How many articles did your search yield? (The number is displayed below the Refine Search—it will say something like 1-30 of 156.) Writedown the number of results on the back of this page.
  9. If you got too many results, narrow it by clicking on one of the subject terms in the yellow Narrow Results by Subject column.
  10. If you got too few, you may need to rephrase your key word or term differently. Click on the white Subject Terms link, and then type your term into the Browse For box, then click Browse. This will tell you what the right subject term is (rather than “seniors,” for instance, EBSCOhost uses the subject term “older people.”) Click on New Search and type in your new search term instead.

Now you should have a good list of results.

  1. Click on the title of an article in your search results page to view a summary of the article.
  2. Click on the the HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text link to view the article itself.
  3. Next to two or three of the articles you’re interested in, click the folder icon on the right to Add to Folder.
  4. Next, go to the open folder icon above your search results; it says Folder has items. Click on the folder icon.
  5. In your folder, click the email button to email these articles to yourself.
  6. Click the radio button next to Citation Format and then choose MLA from the dropdown menu.
  7. Uncheck the box for Remove these articles after emailing.
  8. Click Send.
  9. Back in your folder contents, click the Save link.
  10. Uncheck the box for Remove these articles after saving.
  11. Click the Save button.
  12. In the window that opens up with the text of your articles, take special note of the Works Cited section. This can help you organize your Works Cited lists in the future. (They won’t be formatted perfectly, but they’ll be close.)
  13. If you want to print this list, go to your browser command menu, click on File at the top of your Explorer screen, then choose Print..., then click the radio button next to Pages to just print page 1, and then click Print. (Please do not print long documents right now in the computer lab.)
  14. Click the Back button in Explorer to go back to your folder.
  15. Choose a promising article and write down the article’s title, the author’s name, the publication it appeared in, and the date it was published on the back of the page.
  16. Click New Search to go through this process for the second student in your pair.

Mendham 1

College Composition I

Student 1

Name: ______

- Before you go to the computer, write down key words or phrases you’ll look for.

______

______

______

At the computer, follow the steps on the other side of this sheet.

- How many articles do you get in your search results for your first search? Write the number here.

______

- Next, did you decide to narrow your results by subject, or to look for a better word to search for in Subject Terms? Check one and fill in the appropriate box:

___ Narrowed my results by clicking on the search term ______

___ Didn’t get enough results, so I looked up the search word and changed to the term ______.

- What was one of the most promising articles you found? Write the article’s title here.

______

- Who is the name of the author or authors of the article? Write the name(s) here.

______

- What publication (source) was it published in? Write the title of the journal or newspaper here.

______

- When was the article was published? Write the date here.

______

Student 2

Name: ______

- Before you go to the computer, write down key words or phrases you’ll look for.

______

______

______

At the computer, follow the steps on the other side of this sheet.

- How many articles do you get in your search results for your first search? Write the number here.

______

- Next, did you decide to narrow your results by subject, or to look for a better word to search for in Subject Terms? Check one and fill in the appropriate box:

___ Narrowed my results by clicking on the search term ______

___ Didn’t get enough results, so I looked up the search word and changed to the term ______.

- What was one of the most promising articles you found? Write the article’s title here.

______

- Who is the name of the author or authors of the article? Write the name(s) here.

______

- What publication (source) was it published in? Write the title of the journal or newspaper here.

______

- When was the article was published? Write the date here.

______

Mendham 1

College Composition I

When you have completed this worksheet for both students in your pair, please hand it in.