See the Introduction to the New EBSCOhost Tutorial for basic information on features now found in the user interface for the databases Atla Religion (as well as Old Testament Abstracts, New Testament Abstracts, and Academic Search Premier -- and many others provided via EBSCOhost). The tutorial is focused on the new features for working with the database interface such as accessing full-text, saving/emailing/downloading/exporting individual articles -- or multiple select results as formerly done using the Save to Folder feature.
The Quick Start Guide provides EBSCO's how-to information for searching and browsing as well as for using the tools and management features.
Our "Basic Searching" versus EBSCO's "Basic Search" gives tips for our preference for a basic template for searching, searching by keyword(s) in combination with useful filters, working with your initial results including their assigned subject terms to craft more targeted searches, along with tips for managing your results. On some occasions, this kind of search is sufficient for successful results.
Our "Advanced Searching" builds on our Basic Search and gives tips and instructions for more advanced searching using the Subject Thesaurus or Scripture Search classifications or Scripture Citation field for search terms. These kinds of searches will benefit you in targeting your search results. (Note: Those terms/tags can in turn then be used in combination with keyword(s) and/or filters in further searching: see instructions below.)
1 - Go to the APU library website: https://apu.edu/library.
2 - Below the image, click on the tab Articles and Databases.
3 - In the Select Database by Subject drop-down menu in the search box select/click on Biblical Studies and hit the red search icon (magnifying glass image).
4 - In the list of databases or in the "Best Bets" box, choose ATLA Religion Database with ATLAS PLUS. Note: It is the main academic database for religion, containing the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Online full text of articles is often included. (See Step 14 referenced below.)
Similar databases in content include Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts. Note: These two databases' records contain primarily citations and abstracts, without full text, but do offer links to any available full-text (in other databases here, open access or on publishers' websites) or to a form to request APU's ILL services to obtain it electronically for you (free). Multidiscipline databases such as JSTOR Full Collection and Academic Search Premier also provide relevant content for biblical studies, church history and religious thought and practice.
5 - If you have not yet logged in, you will be prompted to do so now.
6 - Click on the Subjects heading beneath the search boxes. Select Atla - Subject Thesaurus in the index box on left. EBSCO states: "The thesaurus allows you to browse for subject terms you can use to search the database. Subject terms are assigned based on article content, allowing you to create a targeted search."
7 - Enter your search term(s) in the search box on the right there under Subjects. Note: It is not necessary to use quotation marks on phrases such as Good Samaritan or son of man when searching for subject terms. Select to display subject terms by Relevancy ranked or Terms begin with: If you're unsure of the exact subject term used in the Atla database's controlled vocabulary, Relevancy ranked can help you discover appropriate terms. Click on the Magnifying glass to search.
For example: Searching for John the Baptist will give a list of options, including the names of a a hundred churches! Skim the list and find John, the Baptist, Saint.
8 - Select, or tick, the box of the term you desire to use for your search and hit Search. Multiple terms can be added using AND, OR or NOT. [Super advanced: Some search terms have subheadings, eg Bible. Old Testament. You can check the Explode box to the right of the main term heading and hit Add to search to add all of those terms which will broaden the search.]
9 - From here you can move to the All filters box to add limiters (such as Peer-reviewed, a Date Range and Publication Type (Academic Journals) to refine your search and under Search options, remove Expanders and hit Apply. A new feature, also under Search Options, is Search Mode. The default is Proximity aka Boolean which is a standard mode. To learn more about other options, follow the link under Search Mode to EBSCO Connect.
10. Sometimes it is useful to move to the Advanced Search from this results page where it will populate with your Subject term(s) and where you can add your own search terms as keywords or additional Subject terms in the additional search fields now displaying, to further refine your results list (similar to Step 12 in Basic searching).
11 - See our Basic Searching in Atla Religion page for more directions/tips on features and tools for working with your results (Steps 9 -15 there).
1 - 5 - See Steps 1-5 in the box to the left.
6 - Click on the Subjects tab beneath the search boxes.
7 - On the new display, in the left box, change the dropdown menu to the Atla Scripture Search index.
The "terms" are the books of the Bible listed in canonical order (including the intertestamental books). You can scroll down or now there's the option to type in the book of the Bible for your passage in the Search for Terms box in the box on the right:
8 - Type in the book of the Bible for your passage, such as Luke (for example, for Luke 7:36-50). Click on the plus sign next to the term (eg Luke) to go deeper into the citation level of the book, chapter (and/or verse) level.
9 - When you find the chapter you want, check the box next to it, scroll back up and click on Add to search.
10 - SR "Luke 7" is now loaded into the search box [SR is the Scripture Search field.] Hit Search.
Alternatively you can go to the verse level and check boxes for multiple verses to add to your search and hit Search.
11 - From here you can move to the All filters box to add limiters (such as Peer-reviewed, a Date Range and Publication Type (Academic Journals) to refine your search and under Search options, remove Expanders and hit Apply. A new feature, also under Search Options, is Search Mode. The default is Proximity aka Boolean which is a standard mode. To learn more about other options, follow the link under Search Mode to EBSCO Connect.
Sometimes it is useful to move to the Advanced Search from this results page where it will populate with your terms where you can add your own search terms as keywords or Subject classification term(s) found in a relevant record, in the additional search fields now displaying to further refine your results list (similar to Step 12 in Basic searching).
12. See our Basic Searching in Atla Religion page for more directions/tips on features and tools for working with your results (Steps 9-15 there).
*****See How to Search for a Bible Passage Using the Keyword and/or Scripture Citation field in the next box for another method to search for a Bible passage -- preferred by some!
Note: This is the former Scripture Index function. EBSCO now labels it a specialized kind of Browsing Subject search in their materials.
The new EBSCO user interface no longer provides the formerly labeled Bible Citation Index. The do feature a similar Scripture Citation field now labeled Sacred Text Citation (coded SC) "tag" records by Bible chapter or verse or passage. EBSCO does not provide instructions on how to find or use it, but here are tips for what we have discovered for this targeted strategy for searching in the new interface.
1 - 5 - See Steps 1-5 in the box to the far left.
6 - This method begins like a keyword search shown in Basic Searching: Enter your passage in conventional style, such as Luke 9:28-36, in the search box on the left and leave the search field setting on the right set to All fields.
7 - Under Filters, below the search boxes, set the limiters to limit your results: Commonly employed limits are Peer Reviewed (for scholarly journals), Year Published or Publication Date (set /choose a range of, say, the last 10 years), Publication Type set to Article, Language set to the languages you read. Under Search Options, it is recommended to remove the preset Expanders. A new feature, also under Search Options, is Search Mode. The default is Proximity aka Boolean which is a standard mode. To learn more about other options, follow the link under Search Mode to EBSCO Connect. (Note: In my 1 -- only 1 -- test using 1 search term using the default Proximity mode and then enabling the Natural Language mode to compare, I got the same results. On a few additional tests, the number of results differed between these 2 search modes when using more search terms.
8 - Click on Search.
9 - Review results -- they might meet your research needs sufficiently.
10 - To discover more results, click on the title of the article and scroll down the full display of the record to the Scripture Citation aka Sacred Text Citation (SC) field. Note it is set as Luke 9:28 - Luke 9:36, unlike the usual convention style for the same passage that we used in the keyword search. Click on that link to display records tagged as dealing with that passage. You will often discover additional records not found by a keyword search (and note that your filters have been retained). [Tip: Some users explore the SCs by setting the Field search box to SC and inputting a Bible citation such as Genesis 3 or Genesis 3:14 or a standard passage such as Genesis 3:14-19, but i find this approach hit or miss and suggest the methods using the Scripture Search index in the box to the left or by keyword and/or Scripture/Sacred Text (SC) fields described in this box.]
11 - Review those results and any additional Sacred Text Citation designations provided as well as Subject classifications assigned to then find and choose appropriate articles. Like the Subject classifications, the Sacred Text Citations serve as hyperlinks to related material. One bonus in seeing those additional citations and the subject classifications is you can discover related passages that can be useful for certain comparative studies.
12 - Sometimes it is useful to move to the Advanced Search from this results page where it will populate with your Scripture Citation and where you can add your own search terms as keywords or Subject terms in the additional search fields now displaying, to further refine your results list (similar to Step 12 in Basic searching). Also see EBSCO's Quick Guide linked in the top box. Again, review results and select relevant articles.
12 - See our Basic Searching in Atla Religion page for more directions/tips on features and tools for working with your results (Steps 14-15 there).
Disclaimer and Note : this is still being tested. Feel free to ask your theological librarians for help.
SEE NEW INTERFACE TOOL: "TRANSLATING ONLINE FULL TEXT IN NEW EBSCO INTERFACE"
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THE "OLD-FASHIONED" WAY USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE: The limiters are meant to filter the articles to only those that are useful to you. That has meant that if you couldn't read a language, you should set the language limit to, say, English and ignore articles written in other languages.. Over the years Google Translate has gotten to the point that it can do a good enough job that a reader can get the gist of a text, although not all the nuance of a native reader. Google Translate does a reasonable job translating some of the more popular languages. It appears to do well with Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese.
Whether Google Translate will work or not will depend on the type of PDF of the article. PDFs come in two types of files. One type of file makes the pdf basically a picture of a page; this will not work with Google Translate. The other type is OCR (Optical Character Recognition) which means the computer scans each character and makes the document "readable". If the document is an OCR type PDF (no, they are not identified that way, you can download the file and drop it into the Google Translate website.
Sometimes the database will give you the option of HTML or PDF; if the article is in a language you don't read, use the HTML version and then use the URL and paste it in Google Translate.
