Guide to using Factiva

Transcription

1 Guide to using Factiva Factiva allows access to 3 CQUniversity users at a time. If you receive a message saying that your login is in use, please try again in a few minutes. When finished with your Factiva session, please use the 'Logout' button in the upper right corner of the Factiva search screen. Users are automatically logged out after 5 minutes of inactivity. This guide will address the following: Searching for articles on a topic Search within a publication Viewing search results Browse a publication Browse topics using 'News Pages' Further help Searching for articles on a topic Factiva opens to this search screen:

2 Enter search terms Enter words or phrases in the Free Text box. Click on Examples under the Free Text heading for more help on how to do this. NOTE: If you do not separate words with AND, OR or NOT, Factiva will automatically search for your words as a phrase - "journalists ethics" instead of journalists AND ethics. Factiva also allows the use of search strategies such as truncation and wildcards: The truncation symbol is * For example: journali* will return records containing journalist, journalists, journalism. (You must enter a minimum of three characters before the truncation symbol.) The wildcard symbol is? For example: behav?r will return records containing behavior and behaviour. (You must enter a minimum of three characters before the wildcard symbol.) Choose the relevant timeframe You can limit your search to a particular timeframe using the dropdown menu next to Date. The default is the last three months. Select categories It is advisable to limit your search to a category. Factiva has a number of categories available Make selections from as many categories as you need to specify your search, e.g. to find news from a region, select from the Source category. To find news about a region, select from the Region category. NOTE: If you do not select a category within Source, Region, Subject etc, you will be searching the entire Factiva database of over 8000 publications.

3 You can then open each category and subcategory by clicking on the sign beside it. Any level of category can be selected by clicking on it, and deselected by a second click. You can also exclude a category by double clicking on it: There are more search options available at the bottom of the screen: Searches are set to default to search within the fulltext of an article. However, you can increase the relevance of search results by searching only in the headline, or headline and lead paragraph. You can search for the name of a publication (or words within the name of a publication) by selecting Group Custom: Source Name. If you are looking for pictures, you can search for captions by selecting the Group Custom: Caption search. Alternately, choose Pictures from the Select Source Category drop-down box (see above). Note that you can also exclude types of articles, and sort by relevance rather than date: When search terms and limits have been set, click on to view your search results.

4 Searching within a publication Sometimes you may want to search for information within a specific publication or newspaper. Firstly enter words or phrases in the Free Text box. Click on Examples under the Free Text heading for more help on how to do this. Then you will need to select the publication. Factiva refers to publications as sources. The Source category is set open when you log into Factiva with 2 groups displayed for Australian publications: Group: Australian Publications (lists all Australian publications) Group: Major Aust Newspapers (major Australia newspapers) There are three ways to find a publication: 1. Enter the title of the publication you are looking for into the Find a Source box and click on the arrow button: Note: The word Abstracts indicates it is not a full text source. When you have located your publication click on the title, ensure that your search terms have been entered into the free text box and click to view your results. OR 2. Use the My Source Lists drop down box to view Publications By Title A-Z

5 When you have located your publication click on the title, ensure that your search terms have been entered into the free text box and click to view your results. OR 3. Choose a title from within either of the Australian publications groups: NOTE: The All Sources option in the drop box provides a very large list of all publications provided by Factiva which may take some time to download. Find out about a source (e.g. date coverage) by clicking on the next to the title. When you have located your publication click on the title, ensure that your search terms have been entered into the free text box and click to view your results. Viewing search results This is how search results will display:

6 At the top of the results list are tabs for different types of results Publications, Web News, Pictures and Multimedia. The number of results for Publications is indicated at the top of the list of results and the numbers of results for other formats are indicated in [brackets]. If no numbers are given there are no results for that format. You can also use the Sort by menu to view results by publication date or relevance. The View as menu on the top right of this results screen (not indicated above) shows how results will be displayed. There are also New Search and Modify Search options. The Frames link allows you to view the Discovery Pane, results list and individual articles on one screen:

7 On the left of the results page is the Discovery Pane, which helps you filter your results. You can click on any of the terms mentioned in the Discovery Pane to show only those results. You can filter results by a number of criteria, including: Companies displays the 10 most common companies associated with the articles in your search results. Industries displays the 10 most common industries associated with the articles in your search results. The Keywords list is generated from the databases by examining the first 100 articles in your results to extract the most frequently used terms and phrases related to your search. News Clusters examine the first 100 articles to find repeated occurrences of hidden ideas or trends so you immediately uncover information from deep within your search results. Subjects displays the 10 most common subjects associated with the articles in your search results. Sources display the 10 most common sources represented in your results. Date allows you to view your results in weekly increments for date ranges less than 6 months or in monthly increments if you select a date range of In the last 6 months or more. The dates display in a bar chart. On the right of the results page is the list of articles that match your keywords. Click on the headline of an article to view it in html. You can also select items from the list of articles to be ed, printed or saved in other formats by using the toolbar at the top of the list of results. These icons are also available when you view individual articles. To select multiple items from your results list, click the checkboxes at the front of each result you wish to save:

8 Then select what you would like to do with these results: View selected results. selected results. Print results. Formats include headline (citation only) or article format (full text). Save results. Formats include headline (citation only) or article format (full text). Selected results will open in a new window. To save results, go to the File menu and select Save Page As. Save results in RTF (rich text format). Formats include headline (citation only), article format (full text) or headline, article and TOC format. The document will open in MS Word or other word processing software. Save results in PDF format. Formats include headline (citation only), article format (full text) or headline, article and TOC format. The document will open in Adobe Acrobat or other PDF software. Save results in XML format. This can be adapted with some technical programming so that it displays in a consistent and customized manner for newsletters, web pages etc. For more information, select XML Help: Browse a publication You may want to browse a publication with no particular topic in mind, to see the latest articles in that publication. Select the source you wish to browse (see - Searching within a publication add link), and then click on the symbol beside it to add Factiva's publication code to the Free Text box: You should also select your preferred timeframe, for example In the last week, and click to view your results.

9 Browse a topic or topics To browse the latest news on a topic, click on the News Pages tab on the top of the Factiva search screen. You can browse for recent news items by topic or country by using the drop-down menu. The default page is Australia. Further Help Factiva provides a range of guides and help pages from their database. Access these by clicking. For further assistance, contact your Liaison Librarian or phone CQUniversity Library on