The EconLit front page is the Advanced Search.
❶ Search rules
- Boolean operators
- Use the Boolean operator AND combine search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms.
- Use OR to find any of the terms.
- Use NOT to exclude terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it.
- Nesting
For more controlled searching, use parentheses to override the default operator precedence (AND, OR, NOT).
- Phrase searching
To search for an exact phrase, use quotation marks around your search term: "firm performance".
- Truncation & wildcard symbols
- The truncation character is the asterisk (*), used to replace one or more characters. The truncation character can be used at the end, or in the middle of a word.
For example, searching for econom* will find economy, economics, economical, etc..
- The wildcard is represented by a ? or a pound sign #.
- To use the ? wildcard, enter your search terms and replace each unknown character with a ? EconLit finds all citations of that word with the ? replaced by a letter. For example, type ne?t to find all documents containing neat, nest or next. Note that EconLit does not find net because the wildcard replaces a single character.
- To use the # wildcard, enter your search terms, adding the # in places where an alternate spelling may contain an extra character. EconLit finds all documents in which the word appears with or without the extra character. For example, type colo#r to find all citations containing color or colour.
- Field searching
When running a search, the search default is set to 'Select a Field (optional)' which searches the full record (all indexed fields) including the full text. Other search fields can chosen from the pull-down menu such as AU - Author, AB - Abstract, SU - Subject, and SO - Source (journal title).
❷ Published Date
The Published Date limit defaults to search all dates.
❸ Other limits: Publication Type, Geographic Region
Limiting your search by marking any of the limits will run your search to include those limits you selected.
- The Publication Type limit includes Book, Book Review, Collective Volume Article (e.g. book chapter), Dissertation, Journal Article, and Working Paper.
- The Geographic Region limit is used to restrict your search to documents that discuss specific regions such as Asia, Northern America, or Europe.
❹ Linked Full Text
By selecting Linked Full Text, you can limit your search to only return items with full text. However, publications that are not full-text accessible in EconLit may still be accessible through the TiU library. Therefore, it is wise to not check this limit.
