Points of View
Reference Center
Tutorial
support.ebsco.com
Welcome to EBSCO’s Points of View Reference Center (POV) tutorial. POV is a full text database that
provides users with a series of essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. In this tutorial you
will learn about key interface features such as browsing by category, advanced searching and accessing
helpful Research Guides.
To begin, you can either enter a search term in the Find field or use the Browse by Category menu to
search for articles in some of the more popular topics in POV. We’ll begin by clicking on the category
Energy & Conservation revealing all of the related topics in the category.
All of the related topics under Energy & Conservation are displayed. If you do not see your desired
topic, click View All Topics to search through the entire list of categories available. For now, click on
Renewable Energy.
The Points of View results tab is the default document type displayed. Under this tab, Point and
Counterpoint articles about the subject are listed as well as an Overview and a Guide to Critical
Analysis. When other articles are available, you will be able to view them under one of the other
document type tabs, such as All Results, Periodicals and Newspapers. Here, we see the available
Points of View articles for Renewable Energy displayed. To read an article, click on the article title or on
HTML full text.
From the article citation, you can print, e-mail, save or export the article. You can also save it to your
personal folder by clicking Add to Folder.
The Guide to Critical Analysis for each controversial topic discusses criteria in understanding the
issue and also presents exercises such as debate or a critical essay that help the reader further
analyze the subject. Next, we'll look at performing an advanced search in POV. Click on the
Points of View Reference Center icon to return to the home screen.
To perform a keyword search using limiters, click the Advanced Search link above the Find field.
Enter your search term in the Find field and select the limiters you would like to apply to your search.
We'll enter the term Global Warming into the Find field and then select Points of View, Newspapers
and Videos as the Document Types to be returned. Let's also add a publication date range of January
2003 to December 2007. Click Search.
POV executes the search and returns all relevant results. You can also search the database by the
name of a Publication. To search by Publication, click the Publications link found in the upper right
hand corner of the screen.
You can search by entering a publication name into the Find field or by browsing the publications using
the A - Z links. Next we'll look at Research Guides. Click on the Points of View Reference Center logo
in the upper left hand corner to return to the home screen.
Research Guides are tools that assist with various stages of your research. Clicking on a Research
Guide will display a link to a POV article with information to assist you in your research. For now, let's
click on Write a Thesis Statement.
Clicking on the full text of this research guide article will display a helpful explanation of a thesis
statement with tips on how to create an effective one.
HELP: Click on the Help link to view the complete online Help system, and visit our Support Site to
browse our Knowledge Base of FAQs, download Help Sheets, User Guides, and tutorials, or see what’s
new in our Top Stories.
This concludes the Points of View Reference Center tutorial.