1. Modify Search
Click Modify search to make changes to your current search strategy. Or make changes to your search in the search box.
2. Search Within
Use the Search within to run a search within the current results. Add additional keywords and ProQuest will look for the keywords in the set of current search results. Selecting Search within toggles you to the bottom of the search results page.
3. ProQuest Smart Search
Each time you run a search, ProQuest Smart Search displays suggested subjects that you may consider searching on if you find that you are dissatisfied with your current search results. The suggested subjects are related to your current keywords and pull directly from the subject field.
4. Create Alert, Create RSS Feed, Save Search
Create alert sets up an email alert that you schedule and when new records are added to the database that match your search criteria, the records will be emailed to you.
Create RSS feed sets up an RSS feed on the search strategy. Take the URL that is generated and put it into your RSS reader to begin pulling in records.
Use the Save search to save the search strategy to your My Research account. If you are not signed in, you will be prompted to sign in. If you don’t have an account you can sign up for one here too. For more information on My Research please see the My Research section of this guide.
5. Results Tool Bar
For any items that you may have marked, use one of the tools to work with the marked items. Mark items individually or select all items on the page from the results tool bar.
Selected items let’s you view your marked list.
Save to My Research adds the records to your My Research account where they will be stored and available each time you sign in to the My Research account.
Email or Print any marked items.
The Cite tool generates a bibliography in any of the supported styles available from the pull-down menu. Copy and paste the generated bibliography into a document and make any necessary edits. Remember to always check for accuracy.
Export items into a bibliographic manager like RefWorks (subscription and account required) or to the RIS file format. Exporting moves a copy of the record out of ProQuest and into one of the bibliographic managers or supported file formats.
Use Save to save records in PDF, RTF, HTML, or text only format.
6. Source Type Icon
Hover over the Source type icon for the source type of the document. All your results should have the Source type as “dissertations/theses”.
7. Document Formats and Linking
Each record will contain links to the available document formats and possibly any linking tools that the library administrator has enabled to help locate the full text. Please consider that not all records have full text available from ProQuest and you may only have a link to view the citation & abstract (the full record). If your library has enabled tools to locate full text for you, you may see additional links here.
8. Preview
Hover over the Preview to view the major fields of the record including the abstract and subjects. Please see the screenshot to the right.
9. Sort Results By
The Sort results by menu controls the sort order of the records that appear in the results page. Sort by relevance, date (oldest first), or date (most recent first). Relevance is determined by an algorithm that factors in the number of time your search terms appear in the record as well as where in the record your search terms appear.
10. Narrow Results By
Use the Narrow results by to apply additional limits (also known as filters or facets) to refine your results. The limits are pulled from the list of available indexed/searchable fields that appear in the current result set. Some of the main limits you can expect to find (each search and database is different so you can expect different limits to display) include publication title, subject, language, and date. Please see the Searchable Fields section of this guide to see a list of the indexed/searchable fields available in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
11. Navigation and Items Per Page
Navigate to the other pages in your set of results by selecting the page number or the next page navigation.
Items per page is used to select how many results will display on the results page. Choose from 10, 20, 50, or 100 items.
