Print Smart: Research Articles

It may be tempting to print every article you find on your topic. However, applying a few green strategies to your next research paper or project may help save paper and organize your sources. 

• Use in-database tools to save articles in PDF format. You can also copy and paste text from an HTML article and citation information into a Word document and save that. 
• Email yourself the links to the articles. This will help organize all of the information you've found and decide what you would like to use for your paper. 
• When using text from websites, find a print-friendly option, if one exists on the site. Or, copy and paste the online article's URL, text and citation information into a Word doc to refer to later. 
• Utilize a citation management tool like EndNote, RefWorks or Zotero to organize your research. 

In JSTOR, the "Tools" box includes options to view a PDF version, email or save the citation info for the article. 

• After clicking "View PDF," right click on the article to save it.
• "View Citation" will provide the citation information for the article- copy and paste it into a Word Document and save that document.
• "Email Citation" allows you to email the citation information for the article to your email address for later.

Access our library databases, including JSTOR. 

EBSCO Database Tools:

In our EBSCO Databases, which include Academic Search Complete, Associates Programs Source Plus, Business Source Complete, and Newspaper Source Plus, use the tools on the right hand side of the screen. You can email the article to yourself, add it to a folder, or save it to the desktop or your flash drive.  Email:  From the article, click Email and enter your email address when prompted. Emailing articles to yourself is a great strategy to organize your research. When you log into your email account, a persistent link to the article will be sent to you. In the case of full-text articles, clicking the link will bring you to the database where you can read the article in its entirety. If the article isn't available in full text, the link will bring you to the citation information you will need to order the article via InterLibrary Loan.  Saving: To save the full text of an article when PDF full text is available: Select the link for PDF full text in the article (located on the left). In the PDF full text article, use your mouse's right button to select "Save as" to save the PDF OR use the print button that will appear at the bottom of the article.  To save the full text of an article when HTML full text is available: In the article, click the "Save" option in the tools menu on the right. A box will pop up in the center of your screen; be sure "HTML Full text" is selected. Click the yellow Save button. From the next screen, use your browser to save the page (in Internet Explorer, select File-Save as; in Firefox, select File-Save file as; in Chrome, right click and select Save as). This will save the complete HTML file to your computer.  Add to folder: This option allows you to add articles to a folder in the database. You can create a free My EBSCOhost account, which will allow you to sign in from any computer. See the "Sign in" option in any of our EBSCO databases for more information.

When printing documents or articles, figure out if you need the entire article, or if you could just get by with printing a section of the article. Select the page range you need to have a hard copy of and print that. Also, watch out for long bibliographies that may print at the end of an article: select the page range of the text only if you don't need a copy of the bibliography. 

How to print only the pages you need:

In Microsoft Word: After selecting "File" then "Print," under "Settings" click "Print custom range." You can then type in the page numbers or range of pages you would like to print. 

From the Web: After selecting print, an option box will appear. Here you can choose a custom page range to print. 

Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer: 

Google Chrome:

From an EBSCO Database: When printing a PDF file, right click to print OR select the print icon that appears in the database interface. Your browser's options will come up and you will have the option to choose a custom page range. When printing HTML full text, select the print option to the right of the article, then choose the 'print' button. From the next page, you will use your browser's printing function to print, and have the option of selecting a custom page range. 

Does your research involve reading articles on the web? Try these methods to organize your research without printing:

• Create bookmarks in your favorite internet browser. If you have a lot of bookmarks to manage, try creating folders for different sub topics. 
• Use an online service to organize articles and websites that you want to use.  
• Copy the text you need from a website to a Microsoft Word document, or use Microsoft OneNote to organize and save text and images for later. 

CQ Researcher is a wonderful database for beginning researchers. However, the articles are very long and it is not advisable to print them- some are as many as 50 or more pages!

Saving the PDF version of the article is a better strategy: you can refer to it later on your computer as well as search the text for key terms. 

• In the article of your choice, click the "View PDF" button for a PDF version.
• Right click on the PDF article and choose "Save as" to save the article. 

Access our library databases, including CQ Researcher.