You can search for topics using the Search Box at the top of the Britannica Online Premium home page. After entering your search term and clicking the “Go” button (or hitting the Enter key on your keyboard), you will be taken to the Search Results page. On this page your search results will appear in several different categories.
As shown in the image above, searching for the word “kiwi” brings up a number of different search results. On the left side of the Search Results page, there are two sections; one is listed as Britannica and the other as Additional Content. Under the Britannica section there are other subcategories that you can click on to view the results from that database. More information about each of the subcategories can be found below:
Encyclopaedia – This content is from the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica print set.
Year in Review – This content is from the Britannica Book of the Year and the Year in Review.
Dictionary – The definitions are from the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Online Dictionary.
Thesaurus – The synonyms are from the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Online Thesaurus.
Kids Encyclopedia – This content is from the Student and Compton's Encyclopedia sets.
The results from the Additional Content section are pulled from various databases outside of the Encyclopaedia Britannica content. More information about these additional content sources can be found below:
Magazines – Journals and periodicals are supplied by EBSCO Information Services. These articles appear as they did in the original publication, often as a PDF scan of the original document, and have not been reviewed or altered by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Depending on the publication, the original author may have been stating facts or opinions.
E-books – E-books are supplied by Project Gutenberg Consortia Center as part of their classic Literature Collection. These books are electronic versions of the original publication and have not been reviewed by the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Web Search – This feature runs a search using your search term and displays those results in a new Web browser window or tab.
Shop – This feature looks up products on The Britannica Store based on the search term used.
In the image above you can see that the Encyclopaedia category on the left is highlighted. This means that the search results in the middle of the page are from that database. The search results in the Year in Review category are sometimes put in one of two sections: More Results or Featured Result. For the Encyclopaedia database the results may be listed without being placed in a section. You may receive a list of articles that contain the search term. The articles listed under the More Results section are articles that mention the term that you are researching. The Featured Result article appears when there is only one article that corresponds with your search term.
After looking over the results that are displayed, you may find an article that you would like to read. Place the cursor over the article selection to highlight it. When the article is highlighted you will see a brief snippet of the article in the right window. There are additional icons to the right of the article title when it is highlighted. Click the “Refine Results” icon to narrow the search results of the article title that is highlighted. Click on the icon that resembles an open folder to save the article to your Workspace. You may also notice to the far right of your highlighted selection that there is content from the article displayed there. It also lists the database the article was pulled from. That information is provided so that you can decide whether you want to continue reading the article or make another selection. Click on the “See More” link in the window to view the entire article. You can also click on the title of the article on the left to view the article page.