HIST 301: Historian's Craft (Homza, Spring 2025)

Newspaper keyword searches can be surprisingly tricky -- rather than using many keywords, only use two or three at a time. Use the filters to narrow your search, focusing on a specific time period or location. Use newspaper indexes (See tab) to identify key newspapers related to your topic. Use subject/theme specific newspaper databases to narrow your search still further.

Full list of newspapers

EBSCO

• Near Operator (N) will return results where words are close together, regardless of order
  • Women N5 colleges = women and colleges within 5 words of each other
• Within Operator (W) will return results where words are close together, in that order
  • Women W5 colleges = colleges within the last 5 words after women.

ProQuest

• Near Search, NEAR/# finds terms within # words apart in any order
  • woman NEAR/7 colleges = woman and colleges within seven words apart in any order
• Within Search, PRE/# or P/#, finds terms within # words apart in that order
  • woman PRE/7 colleges = searches were colleges is listed within 7 searches after woman

Gale

• Near search N# finds terms within # words apart in any order
  • woman N4 colleges = women and colleges 4 words apart
• Within search W# finds terms within # words apart in that order
  • woman W4 colleges = results where college is within 4 words after woman.

WorldCat

• Near (n#) finds both terms, in any order, within # words (only up to 25)
  • women n10 colleges = colleges and women within 10 words in any order
• Within (w#) finds both terms, in the order typed, within # words (only up to 25)
  • women w10 colleges = colleges no more than 10 words after women

GoogleBook 

• AROUND(#) in any order, within # words
  • woman AROUND(5) colleges = woman and colleges 5 words apart

British History Online

• "term1 term2"~#  finds both terms, in any order, within # words
  •   "women colleges"~5 =  woman and colleges 5 words apart
  • NOTE: this is weird. Usually "" around words searches as a phrase, but in this case the "" act as parentheticals. 

Some Database like Chronicling America have a special drop-down feature for proximity searches built into the search commands.