how to use
How to Use Ethnic NewsWatch
Ethnic NewsWatch is a database of full-text articles from the ethnic, minority, and native press. It is a great way to gain the perspective of various groups on social, political, and cultural issues.
From the Library's home page, select the Databases tab, then choose Ethnic NewsWatch from the alphabetical listing. Note: Only current students, faculty, and staff at Saint Mary's College can access this database from off-campus.
To begin: You are given a choice of searching in English or Spanish. Important: This refers only to the language used for searching not the language of the article. Documents are in both English and Spanish in the database and either interface (English or Spanish) will retrieve articles regardless of the language of the document.
SearchingBasic Search: Once you have selected the search language, you will go to Basic Search screen.
Keyword searching: Enter search terms or phrases in the search box:
Example: affirmative action
Note: In this example affirmative action is searched as a phrase. Only documents with these two words directly adjacent to each other will be retrieved.
Narrowing a search with additional terms: You may add additional terms to focus your search. Connect the terms with the and operator.
Example: affirmative action and college*
This will retrieve documents that have both the phrase affirmative action and the word college.
Truncation: The * is a truncation symbol. This will retrieve either college or colleges or other variations on the root word college.
Use the within operator to specify that two words must be within a certain number of words from each other.
Example: affirmative action w/5 college*
Limit by date of publication: On the date range pull-down menu, choose a pre-set date range or select Specific Date Range and enter your own.
Ethnic Group: Click on the arrow to select from a set list of Ethnic Groups and limit your search to articles dealing with that group or groups. Note: these are rather broad categories (e.g. Asian/Pacific Islanders). To limit to a more specific group (e.g.Vietnamese) you will need to include the term for the more specific group in your keyword search.
affirmative action and vietnameseScholarly Journals: Limits your search to articles from scholarly journals.
Biographical (personal profiles): Limits your search to articles about people related to your keyword search. For example a search on affirmative action using the biographical limit would return a list of articles about people related to affirmative action.
Advanced Search:
Advanced search allows you to combine keyword searching on more than one field. Click on the Advanced Search tab. The Advanced Search screen can be used to search by author, subject, words in title, ethnic group, article type, publication title and other fields.
Example of a Combined Search:
You want to search for editorials with the phrase affirmative action in the citation and article text that focus on African Americans. You would enter affirmative action in the first box and select citation and article text, then enter (or select from the browse list) editorial and enter (or select) African American/Caribbean/African in the last box. The system will insert an "and" between the terms in each box.
Subject Searching using the Thesaurus:
Searching by subject is a good way to make your search more precise. For example, if you search for affirmative action by subject you will retrieve only those articles about the subject affirmative action, rather than articles that just mention affirmative action. Click on Thesaurus on the search screen. Type your term in the box and click on Find Term. The thesaurus will display your term, or if your term is not used, direct you to a different term. It will also suggest related terms. You may then add the term directly to your search by clicking on Add to Search. You may also click on related terms, broader terms or narrower terms and add them to your search.
Finding a known article: When you already know the title of an article you can type the article title into the search box in the Advanced Search and select article title from the pull-down list of fields. If you also have more information (author or publication name) you can limit your title search by typing that information into another search box and limiting to the appropriate field in the pull-down list.
Searching by publication: You can browse by publication by clicking on the "Publication" tab. Type in the exact name of your publication. You can then browse by date.
ResultsAfter you submit your search you will be taken to the results screen
The articles display in order of relevancy. You may change this option by using the pull-down menu in the Sort results by box.
Article type tabs: If you have not limited to a particular article type you will be taken to a list of All Sources. At this point you may also click on Scholarly Journals, Magazines, or Newspapers to restrict the display to articles of the selected type.
Mark articles: You may mark particular items on the list by clicking in the box next to the article. You may then view marked articles and either print or email them to yourself (see below)
To view an article, click on the title of the article or the Full-text icon.
Article Display Screen: When you select an article from the list, the full text of the article will display on the screen.
More like this: Use this to find similar articles to the one you selected. Click on Show Options for Finding Similar Articles. You will then be able to select and combine subject terms, etc. from the original article and execute a search for those articles containing the selected terms.
Printing and Emailing
Printing/Emailing a single article:
To print or e-mail an article, go to the article display and simply click on the appropriate box that is displayed with the article.
Emailing Marked Articles:
After marking the articles you want, click on View Marked Articles, You may also mark items on a list and then send yourself that list by first checking the articles that you want, then click on Email Marked Articles. Make sure article full-text is selected under Format. Fill in the email information and click on send email.
Need additional help?
You may click on the Help link on the top right of the screen to access online help screens. For additional help call the reference librarian (925) 631-4624 or click on the Ask Us link on Library's homepage for more information on contacting a reference librarian.
