How to search Business Source Complete

Business Source Complete is a key resource for business students, which allows you to search for academic and trade journals, as well as company and industry reports. Academic journals contain theoretical and research journal articles, often peer reviewed (checked and approved by experts). Trade journals cover industry news, strategy and policy insights. Company and industry reports are about individual companies or industries, often focused on a specific country or region.

Beth Paton
43 steps
4 minutes

Oclc

Getting started with Advanced Search

Follow the link to[ **Business Source Complete**](http://oxfordbrookes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.asp?authtype=ip,uid&profile=ehost&defaultdb=bth). You may be prompted to enter your Brookes login (student number and password). This is the **Advanced Search** screen, which is the default searching option on Business Source Complete.

The Business Source Complete advanced search screen with the default 3 search boxes.

The default search option is **All fields,** which will search across everything in the database. You can change this to just search for the **Title**, **Author** or other more specific fields within the database using the drop-down menus.

Business Source Complete advanced search boxes with the drop down menu highlighted with an orange circle, and option 'all fields' selected.

If you want to search for articles on a specific subject, select **Subject Terms** from the drop-down menu.

Screenshot of the drop-down menu options on advanced search in BSC, with 'Subject Terms' highlighted with an orange circle.

We are looking for articles about small business strategy. First, we need to break this down into separate search terms or keywords. In this case, our keywords or phrases are **small business** and **strategy**. First, type **small business** into the top search box.

Typing in the term 'small business' using the 'Subject Terms' option in advanced search.

In the second search box, we will also select **subject terms** in the drop-down menu, but instead of strategy, we will type **strateg\***. Using an asterisk at the end of the word is called truncation, and allows us to search for different variations or spellings of a word at the same time (strategy, strategies, strategical, etc.).

How to add additional search terms in advanced search. In the example, 'small business' and 'strateg*' are combined. The 'and' option next to the search boxes is highlighted in orange.

When combining search terms, you can use the connectors **and**, **or** and **not**. Using **and** will search for both terms together, **or** will search for articles that contain at least one of your search terms, and **not** will exclude a search term. Use **not** with caution, especially at the beginning of the searching process, as you don't want to miss out on useful articles.

Showing the boolean search options 'and', 'or' and 'not' in the drop-down menus to the left of the search boxes, highlighted in orange.

Click the blue **Search** button.

Screenshot of advanced search highlighting the blue 'search' button in the bottom right of the screen with an orange circle.

Using search filters

Our last search returned **2696** results. To narrow down the results further, click on **All Filters** under the search box to see more options.

Highlighting the 'all filters' option to narrow a search with an orange circle.

To filter to only peer reviewed articles, tick the **Peer Reviewed** box (**NB** - be aware that this will exclude some key industry publications that are not peer reviewed, including the Harvard Business Review).

Showing the filter options on the right-hand side, with the 'Peer Reviewed' check box highlighted with an orange circle.

To limit to only articles from a specific time period, scroll down and click on **Publication Date,** and either select one of the options (e.g. Past 10 years) or enter a custom date range.

Showing the filter options on the right-hand side, with the 'Past 10 years' check box under the heading 'Publication Date' highlighted with an orange circle.

To see only articles in English, scroll down further to **Language** and tick the **English** box.

Showing the filter options by 'Language', with the 'english' check box highlighted with an orange circle.

Once you are happy with the filters selected, click **Apply.**

Filter options with the blue 'apply' button highlighted with an orange circle.

The number of results has now been reduced to **424**.

List of search results with the number '424' highlighted with an orange circle.

To read one of the articles in your results list, click on the **Access now** button below each result.

Search results list with the 'Access Now (PDF)' button under the top article highlighted with an orange circle.

You can also go back and edit or add to your original search by clicking on **Advanced Search**, below the search box at the top of the results screen.

Search box at the top of the results screen with the 'advanced search' option highlighted in orange (top right).

For example, if I only want to search for articles about the UK, I could add the term **united kingdom** and select **Geographic Terms** in the drop-down menu. The default number of search boxes is three, but you can add more rows below by clicking **+ Add row** (below the search boxes on the left).

Adding another search term - in this example, 'united kingdom' (highlighted in orange) is added to the 3rd search box with the option 'Geographic Terms' in the drop-down menu to the right.

This combination of keywords only returned **4** results. If your search doesn't generate enough results, you may want to change your keywords or remove some of the filters to broaden your search. Keep trying different combinations until you get the results you want.

Results screen with the number '4' highlighted in orange.

Business Thesaurus

If you are not getting enough relevant results from a search, you can check the **Business Thesaurus** for alternative words or phrases to use. First, click on **Subjects** under the main search boxes.

Advanced search screen with the 'Subject' option underneath the search boxes highlighted in orange.

Select **Term begins with** to pick up words or phrases that start with your search term.

Business Thesaurus search screen with option 'Term begins with' underneath the search box highlighted in orange.

If you search for **sme**, it will suggest that you use the phrase "small business" instead in order to find articles about SMEs in this database.

Business Thesaurus search for the term 'sme' with the search symbol (a magnifying glass) highlighted in orange.

Phrase searching

If you want to search for a subject term that doesn't appear in the Business Thesaurus, you can use quotation marks to search for a phrase rather than individual words.

To clear all of your search terms and start a new search, select **Clear all** (next to the Search button). You may also need to delete any filters that still appear under the search boxes. If you type in **"climate change"** in quotation marks, the database will search for the phrase "climate change" instead of the individual keywords 'climate' and 'change', which could return a lot of irrelevant results.

Advanced search for the phrase "climate change" (phrase in quotation marks) in All Fields. The Search button is highlighted in orange.

In the results list, you can see that the phrase you searched for is highlighted.

Search results for the phrase "climate change". The database has highlighted the phrase in the search results in yellow.

Download, save and cite articles

If you find an article in your results list that looks relevant, click on the title to view more details.

Search results screen with the title of the first result highlighted with an orange circle to show where to click.

You will see options underneath the title and description for **Access options** or to **Download** the article.

An example article with the blue 'download' button (bottom right of the screen) highlighted with an orange circle.

If you scroll down below the article title, you can also see **Subject Terms** tagged in this article, which may be useful in future searches to find more relevant articles.

Example article with the 'Subject Terms' list highlighted with an orange circle.

Reading the **Abstract** can also tell you if the article is relevant to your search, as it will give a summary of the content.

Example article with the abstract shown and highlighted with an orange circle.

At the top right of the screen, you will also see some icons for different options such as **Save,** which will bookmark this article during this search session. (**NB** - these will disappear once you log out unless you are logged in using your MyEbsco account. See section [**Setting up MyEbsco account**](https://scribehow.com/viewer/How_to_search_Business_Source_Complete__WXGX5Tz4SXe5qAHPrDN2CQ?scrollToActionId=4dd3fa5b)).

Example article with the 'save' option (bookmark icon) highlighted in orange.

If you are creating a bibliography or using reference management software like EndNote, you can generate citations or export this article to your library by clicking the **Cite** icon.

Example article with the 'cite' option (quote marks icon) highlighted in orange.

The **Copy citation** option will let you view, copy and paste the citation in different styles (e.g. Harvard).

Pop-up menu for the 'cite' option showing different citation styles.

Select **Export citation** to see the different options for exporting to reference management software, such as EndNote.

Export citation menu showing different export options for Endnote, Refworks etc.

If you have a MyEBSCO account set up, **Add to project** will let you save results in a folder to view later (see section [**Setting up MyEbsco account**](https://scribehow.com/viewer/How_to_search_Business_Source_Complete__WXGX5Tz4SXe5qAHPrDN2CQ?scrollToActionId=4dd3fa5b)).

Example article with the 'add to project' option (folder icon) highlighted in orange.

The **Share** icon will let you save the article to Google Drive or OneDrive to read later...

Example article with the 'share' option (arrow icon) highlighted in orange.

...or email it to a friend (useful if you are working on a group project).

Pop-up menu for the 'share' option with a list of options to either share to Google drive, One Drive, or Copy Link, or to send via Email.

The **Download** option also appears in this top menu.

Example article with the 'download' option (arrow and box icon) highlighted in orange.

This gives you the option to download the full text of the article in PDF or HTML format. You can save it to read later or print out a copy.

Pop-up menu for the 'download' option showing the different formats available (PDF or HTML).

Setting up MyEBSCO account

To access additional options, such as saving articles or searches after you have logged out of Business Source Complete, adding articles to project folders, or setting up citation alerts, you will need to set up a MyEBSCO account. This is free for Brookes students.\ \ To get started, click on the **MyEBSCO** icon in the top right corner of the screen.

Advanced search screen with the 'MyEBSCO' icon highlighted in orange.

Select **Create an account** in the pop up window.

Pop-up window with account creation or sign in options for MyEBSCO account.

The simplest way to set this up is to select **Continue with Google** and sign in with your Brookes email credentials.

The MyEBSCO Create an account screen, with the 'Continue with Google' option highlighted in orange.

Once your account is set up and you are logged in, you can configure your settings by clicking on the **MyEBSCO** icon and selecting **My preferences** in the pop-up window.

Pop-up window of MyEBSCO options showing 'My preferences' highlighted in orange.

Click on the **three lines** icon to open the sidebar menu.

My preferences screen in MyEBSCO with three lines (burger menu) option highlighted in orange in the top left.

Click on **My dashboard,** and you will see that you now have access to extra functions such as creating projects and saving articles or searches, viewing recent activity and setting up citation alerts. You can find more information about these features on EBSCO's [Quick Start Guide](https://connect.ebsco.com/s/article/New-EBSCOhost-Quick-Start-Guide?language=en_US) under **Using the Dashboard** and **Using the Tools**.

My dashboard options highlighted to show new functionality such as Save, Projects and Alerts.

Further help

If you need more help with using Business Source Complete, please email us at **library@brookes.ac.uk** or check our [Get help and support page](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/how-to/get-help) for more options.