Format of results. Results may be displayed in one of three formats: Short, Full, or Custom. (A fourth CSA Illumina option, “Full without References,” is irrelevant because the MLA Bibliography does not include listings of all the references in each article.)
- The short format is the default display.The short display provides all the bibliographic information that would be necessary, without UC e-Links, to determine whether your library owns the particular item, or to cite it in your bibliography: its title, author, and source (journal or book title, plus volume number and page numbers for articles and publisher and place of publication for books). On the right side are listed all the descriptors that have been applied to the document and a reminder of which database the citation was retrieved from (useful when you are searching in multiple databases). Each short-format citation has a link to the full format, should you wish to view more information about a particular citation. Each short citation contains an orange UC e-Links button that links to any available source for the online full text of the article and to Roger & Melvyl to determine if a print copy is available at UCSD/UC system. Conveniently, , there is also a direct link to JSTOR for each citation whose text can be found in that full-text journal database.
- To get to the full format bibliographic record, click on the blue link “View Record” in the short format record. The full format shows all the short format elements plus: the date the document was added to the database, its accession number, the type of document it is, its language, whether the source is peer-reviewed or not, and the standard number (ISSN or ISBN) of the journal or book it is in. The name of the database and the descriptors are also listed inside the body of the citation, rather than to the side. These additional data elements are not usually necessary for determining if your library owns the document, or in citing it in your bibliography.
- The custom format allows you to select which among 22 (current) pieces of bibliographic data you would like to have displayed in your results.
- To change from short format (default) to full or custom formats before executing a search, scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Search screen to the word “Show” and change format in the drop-down box.
Order of display: Results may be displayed in either of two orders: reverse chronological order by date of publication, or relevance. The default at UCSD is reverse chronological. To change it to relevance, use the drop-down arrow near the upper-right corner of the results screen.
Number of results per screen: 25 citations are displayed per screen. This may be changed to either 10 or 50 from the “Results per page” box at the bottom of the search screen, or from the “Show” box at the very bottom of the Advanced Search screen.
Search History. CSA Illumina keeps track of the searches you have executed during a session. They are listed with numbers at the BOTTOM of the screen. Searches from this list may be edited, saved (up to 50 strategies), deleted, run again, or saved as Alerts (see below).
