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SPCE 280: Behavior Analysis: Principles, Procedures, and Philosophy

When you have a certain article you need to find and read, these are the steps to take.

About this guide

This guide is meant to accompany SPCE 280 assignments where you need to read a specific article -- perhaps for your article review assignment -- and you have to find it online, electronically.

As a Ball State student, you are entitled to use the University Libraries, whether in the building or from afar.  This guide should give you some tools you can use for finding the research you need.

Basic steps for finding an article

When you need to get a hold of a specific article and read it...

  1. Start your research on the BSU Libraries homepage at www.bsu.edu/library.
  2. In the OneSearch search box, type the title of the article.  (Copying and pasting from an email or Canvas posting works well.)
  3. Your title should be at or near the top of the search results list.
  4. Getting to the full-text of the article, should be as easy as clicking on the title.

Watch the video or walk through the example below to see these steps in action.

Video: Finding an Article I Need Using OneSearch

Sample article search

Let's say you had an assignment requiring you to find and read this article:

Landa, R. K., Hansen, B., & Alice Shillingsburg, M. (2017). Teaching mands for information using ‘when’ to children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 50(3), 538-551. 

First we'll go to the BSU Libraries' homepage at www.bsu.edu/library.

In the big OneSearch box, we can type in our article title.

Usually your title will be the first one listed in the results, as it is in this example (below).  But it’s best to double-check the author and year to be sure you’re choosing the correct title.  Notice that sometimes you end up with duplicate records  (as we did here) which point you to the exact same article.

OneSearch result link for "Teaching mands" article. Arrows point to Full Text Online links.

Now, to find the full-text we can click on either the title of the article, or the "Full Text Online" link.

At this point in the process, you need to be flexible, because what happens next just depends on how we access the full-text.  Be prepared for one of these options when the new tab opens:

  • You may see the full-text of your article right there, easy to read, save, print, etc. 
    • Wonderful!  You're all set.  Read and be merry.
  • Or it's possible the new tab will take you to the OneSearch services record for that article title.  In that case, look under "View Online."  There may be several options for viewing the title, though here there's only one.  We'll click on "Wiley-Blackwell Journals" in the example below.

  • Again here, you need to be flexible!
    • You may see the full-text of your article right there, easy to read, save, print, etc. 
      • Wonderful!  You're all set.  Read and be merry.
  • Or you may see that you're on the web site for the journal your article is published in, but not brought directly to your article.  (Something like what you see here...)

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  • Do not despair!  All you need to do is type (or copy & paste) the name of your article into the search box (usually toward the top)...

  • ...which should bring your article right up at the top of the results list (something like this...)

  • Then all you need to do is to click on the article title, and the full article will be displayed, complete with options to print, download, etc.  Voila: You've got your article!