Dissertations & Theses (ProQuest)
Alliant Library http://library.alliant.edu
ProQuest’s Full Text Dissertation & Theses provides access to citations and abstracts for dissertation research in the United States, Canada and other international countries. Most dissertations (and some masters theses) published since 1997 have 24 page previews and full-text PDF. Some pre-1997 dissertations are available; for the rest use the "Find a Copy" link to request a hard copy using Interlibrary Loan.
Access: Alliant students, faculty and staff (on or off campus):
From the Alliant Library home page click on Databases, then Dissertations & Theses. If accessing off campus you will be prompted for your user name (last name) and 14-digit library barcode (or Alliant ID number). Pop-ups and cookies will need to be enabled to use any of the databases. If you have problems accessing the database check the FAQ pages first, and then call your home library.
NOTE: Full text files require Adobe Acrobat Reader. This may be downloaded at http://www.adobe.com.
Search options:
- Advanced [default] – Used to do a Boolean search (using AND, OR, AND NOT, WITHIN 3 or PRE/1). Each search term can be limited to a particular field including citation & abstract, abstract, author, advisor, degree, document title, or index terms (key words). Advanced Search also has a More Search Options feature and allows Boolean searching within certain fields.
- Basic – Click n the “Basic” tab at the top of the screen. Enter term or terms and click on SEARCH.
- Browse – If you select the “Browse” tab on the top you can search by subject or location.
Limiting your search:
Searches can be limited by date range and/or full text only.
More Search Options
- Basic Search– if you select the “More Search Options” you can browse the database by authors, schools and subjects. Click on the “browse [area]”. A second window will open. Type in the author, school or subject and click on “find term”. From the list select the term and click on “add to search”. Your search term will be inserted into appropriate field.Basic Search
- Advanced Search – Under the “More Search Options” advanced search adds the options of browsing by advisor or key words along with school and subject.
Institution Search (to limit to all material submitted from a particular school)
- Basic Search--Type your search term. Select “More Search Options” and type the name of the school (example: Alliant International University). Basic
- Advanced Search—Type search term in first search box and select field to search (default is citation and abstract). In the second search box to the right of AND type the school’s name (example: united states international university) or a keyword from the name. Select “School name/code” from the pull-down menu.
Note: Both the HELP and Search Tips links have useful information and instructions on searching, truncation & wild cards, Boolean operators, stop words, and more.
Truncation and Wildcard Characters
- The symbol * (asterisk) is used as a right-handed truncation character only. It will find all forms of a word. For example, searching for econom* will find “economy”, “economics”, “economical”, etc.
- The symbol ? (question mark) is used to replace any single character, either inside the word or the right end of the word. ? cannot be used to begin a word. For example, searching for "wom?n" will find "woman" and "women." Searching for "t?re" will find "tire", "tyre", "tore", etc.
Operators:
Boolean, proximity and adjacency operators are used to broaden and narrow your search.
Viewing Results:
Under Results you will see the number of items retrieved. The brief citation shows the title, author, degree, university, year, number of pages, and UMI order number. Under that are the viewing options of “abstract”, “24 page preview” (if available), “Page image-PDF” (if available), and “Order a copy”.
Save the Selected Results:
- Mark— To mark items for email (not recommended, see note under Email), cite, or export click on the box to the left of the title.Mark
- Email —WARNING: If you try sending a list of citation with full-text using the HTML or Plain text method you will just get a link to the full-text record that may or may not work. It is recommended that you select “Full Text PDF” for each dissertation. Wait until the PDF file completely downloads and then save to the hard drive or external drive. If you want to email item, once download is complete open your email account and attach document to a new message. Because of the size of the PDF files it is recommended that you only attach one file per message. Some files may be too large to email so an external drive is recommended.Email
- Cite— Create a bibliography of your citations. Format is either citation only or citation and abstract. Pick your “Citation style”. Select whether to email, print or download your list. If you pick email you will need to select HTML or Plain text.
- Export—Export or download citations directly into Procite, Endnote, Reference Manager, or RefWorks if you have this software on your own computer.
- Print—Make sure you select the printer icon on the PDF toolbar not the printer icon on the browser toolbar when printing PDF documents.
School Codes (SC)
Alliant International University, Fresno -- 1435
Alliant International University, Los Angeles -- 1436
Alliant International University, San Diego – 1389 [includes Irvine dissertations since 2001]
Alliant International University, San Francisco Bay – 1434
California School of Professional Psychology - Berkeley/Alameda -- 0039
California School of Professional Psychology - Fresno -- 0444
California School of Professional Psychology - Los Angeles -- 0068
California School of Professional Psychology - San Diego -- 0379
California School of Professional Psychology - San Francisco -- 1047
United States International University – 0239 [includes Irvine dissertations before 2001]
PLEASE ASK! We are here to help you in your research.
9/2011 wl/md (updated 10/2014 es)
