Gale Online Database - Secondary

Gale Databases (complete list K-12)includes articles from scholarly journals, case studies, references, images, videos, audio, news and more covering a wide variety of topics, including: biology, chemistry, criminal justice, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology. Journals and reference sources cover the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and many other subjects. 

There are 43 subject databases to choose from. Choose the subject database where you can expect to find the information you seek.

How do I access the tool?

Password is required. Speak to your teacher to request the password.

Password information is required when subscriptions are paid for. Resources are to be used only by the York Region District School Board.  

Tips for using the tool 

Gale Databases offer a number of useful features including the ability to:

• Browse by discipline, use the topic finder, perform a subject guide search or filter your results and find related content.
• Sign in with GAPPS account - lets you save to Google Drive
• Listen and translate 
• Use highlights and notes that transfer to Google drive
• Cite sources in multiple styles 
• Filter by reading level
• Topic Finder - Visualize connections between search terms and topics and view relevant articles for those topics.

Video Resources

• Gale In Context: Narrowing your search  (video 1:13 min)
• Gale In Context: When You Need a Research Topic (video 1:15 min)
• Gale Tools - Accessibility and Support for All Learners (video 1:21 min)
• Downloading and Sending to Google Drive (video 0:54 min)
• Gale Tools: Topic Finder (video 1:02 min)
• Academic OneFile - Targeting Trusted Sources (video 1:32 min)

Search Tips

Search Box

• Basic: a good all-purpose search
• Subject: Find content about a topic
• Publication: Find content by its source
• Entire Document: Search every word
• Within: Search within your results (appears only when viewing search results)

Want to improve your searches? Use Boolean searches or Logical Operators.

You can use the following logical operators (also known as Booleans) in your searches:

• Use AND to find all of your search terms
• Use OR to find one, some, or all of your search terms
• Use NOT before a term that you want to exclude

Quotation Marks

Enclose your search terms in double quotation marks (" ") when you are looking for words together in a specific order. 

Too Few Results

The following represents sample results from a Gale database of contemporary newspapers using Advanced Search. Notice how the number of results increases by selecting an Advanced Search index that performs a broader search.

• Searching for Bradford fire using the Document Title index may find 54 results
• Searching for Bradford fire using the Keyword index may find 125 results
• Searching for Bradford fire using the Entire Document index may find 286 results
• Searching for Bradford AND fire using the Entire Document index may find 293 results

Tip: Keep track of the searches you have performed on the Search History page. Here you will find the number of results produced by each search and links to re-run or revise the search.

Too Many Results

When searching a large digital resource, you may find that your searches produce too many results that are not relevant to your needs. This may be especially true when your search terms consist of common words or names. Here are some ways to better focus your search:

• Add more search terms to your query using the AND logical operator. For example cancer AND symptoms AND tests (You do not have to capitalize the AND, although some searchers like to.)
• When using Advanced Search, select from the More Options limiters. For example, you can select a specific document type and/or limit your search by publication date.
• When using Advanced Search, select an index that matches what you are searching for, such as Author or Company Name.

Wildcard Characters (Truncation Characters)

You can substitute a special symbol known as a wildcard character for one or more letters when you do not want to include, or do not know, exact spellings.

There are three wildcard characters:

• The asterisk (*) stands for any number of characters, including none
• The question mark (?) stands for exactly one character
• The exclamation point (!) stands for one or no characters

Sample searches

•  carib* finds: Carib, Caribs, Caribbean, caribe, caribou, etc.
•  psych????y finds: psychiatry and psychology
•  colo!r finds: color and colour

Tip: Many Gale resources require a minimum number of characters (usually three) before you can use the asterisk wildcard, so the following search would not be allowed: ma*

Truncation

The asterisk (*) character is often referred to as a truncation character. It allows you to take a root word or common part of a word and look for any ending. For example, content about teenage drivers may use the terms, teenage drivers, teen driver, teen driving, and so on. To find all of these variations in a single search, type only the common letters followed by the asterisk (*), as follows: teen* driv*

Subject Guide

The Subject Guide is like a thesaurus for finding the right search terms, especially when starting your research. Type in a topic and it will suggest preferred spellings and related terms. You can limit your search using the More Options.

Why Use the Subject Guide?

• To find content about a topic
• To narrow a broad topic
• To discover new terms to research

Subject Terms

When doing a Subject Guide search, the Subject Terms page allows you to select a term and get results (the number of results is shown). Or you can continue browsing subject terms to refine your search by using the Subdivisions and Related Subjects links.

Subdivisions

Subdivisions divide a topic into standard categories. For example, given the topic of aircraft safety, are you interested in Statistics? Investigations? Forecasts and trends?

Related Subjects

The related subject terms are organized into the following categories. For example, for the topic of Green Energy, here are some examples of related terms:

• Narrower: Such as a specific  subject like wind energy
• Broader: Such as Renewal Energy  in general
• Related: Suggests slightly different topics, such as  climate change

You can filter the related subject terms using the Show Related Subjects By drop-down list.

See also: Subject Guide

Highlights and Notes

The Highlights and Notes screen displays highlights and notes from articles during your current session.

Tip: Click or tap Labels in the toolbar to create a legend for your highlights. You can label each color you've used for highlighting text and click save to create the legend.

Tip: Before closing the product or your browser, be sure to send, download, or print your Highlights and Notes, or they will be lost.

Return to the Document

To view the highlighted text in its original context, click or tap the article title.

Tip: When viewing a highlighted document, here's how to find and jump to each highlighted section:

1. In the toolbar, select Highlights and Notes (number)
2. In the pop-up, select the highlighted section that you want to skip to in the document
3. Optional: Click or tap View All Highlights and Notes to return to the Highlights and Notes screen