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Urban Studies Abstracts: Home

Urban Studies Abstracts: by EBSCO

Including bibliographic records covering essential areas related to the study of cities and regions, Urban Studies Abstracts explores such topics as  urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevant to the discipline. This database contains more than 99,000 records from key discipline resources with coverage back to 1973. Coverage list here.

Choosing Search Terms:

  1. Choose specific terms closely related to your research topic. 
  2. Choose terms that you might use when discussing your topic with a colleague, including current jargon.
  3. Include synonyms and abbreviations.
  4. This search is not case sensitive. 

More Info for Urban Studies Abstracts:

Dates of Coverage: 1973-Present
Access:
  1. From the CPLA homepage under Key Databases, select "Urban Studies Abstracts"
  2. From Databases by Subject page, search "urban"

When off campus, log in with your UIUC NetID and password. 
Types of Search:

Urban Studies Abstracts defaults to Advanced Search:

  • Provides three search fields with option to add more. 
  • Provides drop-down menus to limit search to specific field (title, author, etc.) If no field is selected, default is keyword search.

Under the search fields, choose Basic Search if you want to do a basic keyword search. 
Search Options: Under Search Options, choose a Search Mode or Limit your results. You can choose to search by specific dates, limit results to only those that include full text, or limit results to only those from scholarly (peer reviewed) journals. 
Boolean Operators:

To limit results: use AND to find articles with both terms (x AND y)

To broaden results: use OR to find articles with either term (x OR y)

To eliminate some terms: use NOT to find articles with one term but not the other (x NOT y)

Urban Studies Abstracts defaults to AND searches: if you search for window roof, Urban Studies Abstracts interprets it as window AND roof
Truncation/Wildcards and proximity symbols:

(?) replaces one character in a word (ne?t returns nest, newt)

(#) replaces one or zero characters (colo#r returns color, colour)

(*) is a truncation symbol. Use it to find all forms of a root term (garden* returns garden, gardener, gardening)

(N): Near operator. Place this operator and a number (e.g. N5) between two words or phrases. N5 finds the words if they are within 5 words of each other, in any order.

(W): Within operator. Place this operator and a number (e.g. W8) between two words or phrases. W8 finds the words if they are within 8 words of each other, in the order you entered them. 
Limits: You may limit your search to publication date, publication type, document type, publication, peer reviewed publications, and number of pages. 
Results:
  1. Results are automatically sorted by relevance. Use the drop-down menu on the right side above the results to change sorting to Date Newest, Date Oldest, Source, Author. 
  2. Limit your search to specific years or source types with the Refine Results tool on the left side of the page. 
  3. Save interesting and relevant articles by clicking the Add to Folder button (it is a folder icon).
  4. Use the blue UIUC Discover Full Text button to locate full text of articles not available for download through Urban Studies Abstracts. 
  5. Use facets on left to limit search further. 
Phrase searching: Use "quotes" to identify exact phrases. If 'stop words,' or filler words like 'so,' 'become,' and 'however' are included in the phrase in quotes, Urban Studies Abstracts does NOT search for these words. Punctuation is not included in a search of an exact phrase. 
To find full text: If the linked full text is available through Urban Studies Abstracts, click the Linked Full Text or PDF link in the article record. Click the blue Discover Full Text button. If the article is available to UIUC users from our subscriptions, a link to the article appears in the "Full Text" section. If not, you will be provided links to search for the journal in the library catalog or UIUC students, faculty, and staff may request a photocopy of the article through our Interlibrary Loan (ILL). 
To save, print, email, export, or cite a record: From the search results, click on an article title. Look for the Tools list on the right side of the article record. From there, select an option to save, print, email, export, cite, or link to a record. and more. Clicking a tool will open a manager box at the top of the record. 
Folder: Use the Folder to save interesting and relevant articles. Sign in to save the articles to your account (Note: See 'Set up an account' below.) If you are not signed in, the items in your folder will only be saved for the duration of your session. 
Set up an account: To set up an EBSCOhost account, first access Urban Studies Abstracts through the UIUC Library (see page 1). In the orange navigation bar at the top, click the Sign In link. Then click the Create a new Account link. 
Preferences:

After logging in, click Preferences in the orange navigation bar at the top of the page. There you will see all the personalization options for your EBSCOhost account. From there, change search settings, page layout options, and output options. 
Alerts: You can save searches as e-mail alerts or RSS feeds to be told when a new article is found through a particular search. To set up an alert, do a keyword search you would like to save. from the search results, click the Search History link above the article list and then click on the RSS icon next to your desired search term(s). Choose the type of alert (e-mail or RSS). Set the alert parameters. To view and edit active alerts, click Folder in the orange navigation bar. Select Search Alerts. 

 

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