Search Tips

What is a search?

The Pearson academic and reference catalogs contain hundreds of thousands of pages of data-and somewhere in that data is the exact information you're looking for.

A search is conducted by issuing a query, which is simply a way of asking a question that will find the information you're looking for. Searching is most often an iterative process. If the results obtained after submitting a query don't quite contain the information you're looking for, the query is refined until you locate the document that contains the data.

Hopefully, these search tips will help facilitate the process of obtaining the information you're looking for. If this is your first time using the Pearson Catalogue Search start with the General Search Tips section.

General Search Tips

You can enter information into one or more fields, but it is not required to get a match. The more specific the information you enter, the more exact your search results may be. Sometimes it's better not to provide too much information because your search may prove to be too narrow and miss the particular book you're looking for. Searches are not case sensitive.

If desired, you can narrow your search further by selecting an option from one or more of the Refine Your Search filters (Copyright Year, Search In, Sort Results By).

Note: The default settings for your (non-refined/no filters) queries are as follows:

• The search will be performed within the Academic Catalogue
  
• The results will be sorted according to Copyright Year
  
• All titles (regardless of copyright year) that are still in-print will be returned for the entries that match your field(s) criteria

You may change these settings by refining your search using the filter options under the "Refine Your Search" section.

Search Results

If you find that your list of search results is too long, you can narrow it down by clicking "Back" button and either entering more information or using one of the filter options under the "Refine Your Search" section.

Conversely, if you find that your list of results is too short, you may have entered too much search information. The search engine probably was not able to find many books that met all of your criteria. You can modify your search criteria by clicking the "Back" button on the Search Results page.

Search Types

Note:You may use either the main search fields (Keyword, Title, Author, ISBN, Edition) alone or in conjunction with the "Refine Your Search" optional filters. You may also conduct your search using only the "Refine Your Search" filters.

Keyword Search

The keyword search does a full-text search of a product's entire catalogue page.

Example: psych
Retrieves all pages containing the words psychology, psychiatric, psychoanalytic, etc.

Example: ology
Retrieves all pages containing the words biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, kinesiology, etc

Title Search

Enter all or part of the tile you are looking for. The search engine will try to locate products containing all the words you have entered in the title. If one or more of the words entered in the query do not appear in the actual title, no results will be returned. If you are unsure as to whether one of the words in your title search is part of the actual title, then omitting that word will provide better results.

• Omit common words such as "the" and "of" at the beginning of the title.

  Example: Visual Arts
  Retrieves "The Visual Arts: A History" by Honour & Fleming. However, because of the structure of our data, if you enter "The Visual Arts", no records will be returned.

Author Search

• You will get the most comprehensive results if you search by last name only. Names must be spelled correctly. If you want to include the author's first name, use Lastname, Firstname.

  Example: Thill and Thill, John
  Retrieves all books written by John Thill. However, because of the structure of our data, if you enter "John Thill", no records will be returned.

• If you are searching for an author of an article, essay, or other section of the book who is NOT one of the book's main authors, do not use the author search. Use the keyword search instead.
  
• If all else fails, try entering the author's name in the keyword field. You can use wildcards to account for spelling variations. Keep in mind that you will be searching the full text of the catalogue page, not just the author field.

ISBN Search

This is the most efficient form of searching. An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique 10-digit identifier that is usually found near the bar code on the back of the book, or on the book's copyright page.

• Enter the full ISBN without hyphens.

  Example: 0-13760-554-4 should be entered as 0137605544

  Retrieves the document link for ISBN: 0137605544 exclusively.

Edition Search

• Allows you to search by edition number of the book you're looking for. Simply enter the numeric digit(s) (limit:2).

  Example: 12
  Retrieves all books that are currenlty available in the 12th edition.

Refining Your Search

Note: You may use either the "Refine Your Search" filters (Copyright Year, Search In, Sort Results By) alone or in conjunction with the main search fields.

Copyright Year Search

Enter the full year or the last two digits.

• If you want a specific copyright year, select "is."

  Example: is 2000
  Retrieves all copyright 2000 products.

Sort Results

You may choose to have your search results returned to you sorted by any of these options:

• Cpoyright Year
  Results sorted with most recent titles shown first.
• Book Title
  Results sorted alphabetically by book title.
• Lead Author Name
  Results sorted alphabetically by lead author name.