NZCER Publications Database: Basic Search Help
Finding keywords and key phrases
To find keywords, you need to type an ampersand (&) between each word
school & transition
cathy & wylie
To find phrases (several words in order), just type them
(you don’t need speech marks around them)
bulk funding
child care
To find synonyms, you need to type a forward slash (/) between each one
early childhood/preschool/pre-school/kindergarten/day care/daycare
Group synonyms with brackets if you’re adding another search term
(early childhood/preschool/pre-school) & professional development
To find plurals, alternative spellings, etc, truncate with an asterisk (*)
child* (finds child, children, child’s etc)
playcent* (finds playcentre, playcenter, playcentres etc)
To find one term but exclude another term, type an exclamation mark (!) between the terms (a term is a key word or key phrase)
disadvantage* !disadvantaged (finds disadvantage, disadvantages, but not disadvantaged)
Tip: For best results use more than one keyword or phrase.
Finding titles of books, articles, papers etc
You don’t need to type the whole title. To find the report titled: The socialisation of teachers into the culture of assessment you can...
You can type a phrase (several words in order)
socialisation of teachers
Or you can type keywords (several words, not necessarily in order)
socialisation & teachers
teachers & culture & assessment
Finding authors
Type the author's surname first
Optional: follow their surname with their first name or truncated initials
wylie
wylie cathy
wylie c*
Or use the ampersand (&) between the author’s first and last names
wylie & cathy
Finding full text only
To restrict your search to full text only
Click the ‘I only want full text’ box (under the Keywords box)
