University Library > Guides > Using Sociological Abstracts

How To Use CSA®

**Table of Contents**
Logging In Selecting a Database Search Techniques Quick Search	Advanced Search Browse Indexes Thesaurus Search Results List	Finding Articles Save/Print/Email Open CSA Databases Need More Help?

The CSA platform is used by the ComDisDome, Criminal Justice Abstracts, and Sociological Abstracts databases to search for citations and abstracts of journal articles, books, dissertations and conference proceedings. These databases are available to students, faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater .

Logging In

To login, go to any University Library webpage. Select Articles from the Find menu, click on the the first letter of the database name under Indexes & Databases in Alphabetical Order, scroll down and click on the name. If you are off-campus, you will be asked to enter your net-ID and password at this point.

Selecting a Database

If you are on a search screen, scroll down to the Change option, and click on Specific Databases. Check the box preceding the database(s) you want to search, and then click on Continue to Search.

Search Techniques

**Search Techniques**
To retrieve records with:	Search for:
various forms of a word, e.g. alcoholic, alcoholism	alcohol*
various letters within a word e.g. woman or women	*womn**
more than one word, not adjacent but related	*drug and addict and womn*
various words having similar concepts	drug* or narcotic*
combining terms	*womn and (drugs or alcohol)*

Quick Search

Enter a word or words in the search box. Use the strategies above to formulate your search. Any two or more words together will be searched as a phrase (e.g. urban planning; rural urban differences). Use the dropdown menu to change the date range if desired. Click on Search.

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Advanced Search

The Advanced Search allows you to specify the field from which your words or terms are taken. Click on the down arrow and select from the list and then type the word or term in the textbox. In the example below, keywords were chosen in the first line, descriptors (subject headings) in the second and Source (journal title) in the third. There is an automatic AND between the first and second lines although you may select a relationship between the second and third lines. The Advanced Search screen also allows you to create more limits than can be found on the Quick Search screen. The most useful of these limits specifies Journal Articles Only. Use the dropdown menus to select a year-to-year date range. Other limits allow you to change the way the results list is displayed by choosing a different format using the dropdown menu by the Show search box and by increasing the number of entries displayed per page. After putting in all search terms and selecting limits click on the Search button..

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Browse Indexes

From within the Advanced Search screen choose Indexes. This is one of the links at the bottom of the page and is one of the Search Tools. Click on the down arrow to select either the Author, Journal Name or Publication Type index. To search the Author or Journal Name index type a term in the textbox and click on Go. Once a list is brought up, click on the box beside the desired term(s) and then click on the Search button. If more than one term is selected you can chose whether you want the database to search for all of the terms (OR search) or only those places where both items appear together (AND search). Because author names can vary it is best to search for an author by browsing the author index. The journal name index can be used to find out if a specific title is included in the database When searching the Publication Type index just click on Go without putting in a term in the textbox. Choose a publication type from the options listed.

Results from any index search can be combined with a keyword by clicking on the Edit Search link at the top of the results page and using the Insert Field Code dropdown list and clicking on Insert. The default is Keyword. Be sure to add the word AND between the last of the index terms you've chosen and before the Field Code you are inserting. Editing the results from an index search enables you to select several journals and have the database search within only those titles for a specific term.

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Thesaurus Search

The thesaurus can be used for more precise searching. Click on the Thesaurus button and choose Alphabetical Index or Hierarchy or Rotated Index . Type in the term and click on the Go button. The Hierarchy and Rotated Index searches will give related and/or narrower terms and therefore more ideas for different terms to use. Click in the box beside the term desired and then click on the Search button. Thesaurus terms are also called descriptors.

Results List

The results display shows the title, author and source of the item. It also includes a excerpt from the abstract. Click on the article title or on View Record to get the full record including the complete abstract. The way the results list appears can be changed by going back to the Advanced Search screen and selecting an alternative format from the Show dropdown list.

Finding Articles

CSA databases have very few articles in full text. To find if the UW-W has access to the full article use the button at the top of the record. If the article is available in one or more of our other online databases there will be a link to that database (sometimes directly to the article and sometimes just to the database itself). If it is available in print, on the first floor of the library, there will be a link to the library catalog (be sure to check this link to be certain that we have the date you are looking for). If the article is not available online or in print there is a link to ILLiad our InterLibrary Loan service and you can request the article from another library for a charge of $1 per article.

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Save/Print/Email

From the Results list click in the box beside the record or records you want to save/print/email. Click on the Save/Print/Email Record button and check the information listed. To see what will be saved/printed or emailed click on the Print Preview button. The default is the Short Format which includes the author, title, source, abstract and descriptors. If you would like more information printed (perhaps the references used in the article) you can change the format by using the dropdown list.

Open CSA Databases

You can use these links to search CSA databases now:

Need More Help?

For assistance, contact a reference librarian at (262) 472-1032, by email or chat or in person at the Library's Reference Desk.

Last Revised: MS - 2/05/2008